


No One's Child

by evelynwaaaaah



Series: Elvhenan Arises [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: #dalishproblems, Abandonment Issues, All Elves All the Time, Angst, Arlathan, Backstory, Chapter 10 Is Rough, Child Abandonment, Child Neglect, Cole Gets Descartes, Cole Learns to Be People, Complicated Pasts, Depression, Dirty Drinking Songs, Dread Puppies, Elf Stuff, Elfblooded Babies, Elvhenan, Everybody Gets Drunk But Hal, Explanations, F/M, Feelings, Fen'Hellan, Fenris and Dorian Don't Get Along, Grief/Mourning, Human Cole, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Merrill Learns the Truth, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Minor Zevran Arainai/Female Elf Warden, Miscarriage, Nobody Likes Tevinter, Orphans, Parent Death, Past Alistair/Female Elf Warden, Past Leliana/Zevran/Female Elf Warden, Post-Game, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution, Rampant Speculation, Repressed Memories, Scheming, Secret Heir, Shit Gets Dark, Slavery, Spirits, Spirits (The Liquor Kind), Spoilers, Starvation, TAG ALL THE THINGS, The Fade, The Forgotten Ones - Freeform, The Pantheon, Unrepentant Melodrama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 50
Words: 87,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3765073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evelynwaaaaah/pseuds/evelynwaaaaah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Varric's worlds collide, life at Skyhold becomes infinitely more complicated. For everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes!" Varric greeted from the open gate of Skyhold.

They weren't. They were filthy and soaked and shivering in their skins and furs and wrapped up so tightly that there was no way the dwarf could see from where he stood which of them was which. But they could see plenty of him. He wore a cloak with a hood that had kept the pouring rain off of him and a sweater over his tunic, but Varric's chest hair was front and center as it always was, despite the frigidity of the autumn wind.

"How can anyone live here?" Merrill lamented, her teeth chattering almost as loudly as their horses' hooves on the road.

"Varric, put a blighted shirt on!" shouted Hawke, "It's freezing!"

The dwarf looked down at his torso in confusion and offered a shrug. "I have two on already, Hawke, how many more do you need me to wear?" He waved an arm at them, beckoning their small party toward the keep. "Hurry up and you can dry off and sit by a nice warm fire!"

They urged their exhausted mounts to a last-ditch trot to the iron gate and dismounted at Varric's side, who held up a distancing hand. "I think you're wonderful people and all, but let's hold off on the hugs until you're clean and dry."

Hawke finally began to unwrap her scarf and threw her hood behind her head, grinning as best she could at her dear friend with lips numb from wind. Behind her, holding their horses by their leads, Bethany, Fenris, and Merrill stamped their feet and revealed their faces behind their wrappings, staring up at the impressive, ancient stonework the Inquisition called home. "Hello again, nugnut."

His smile took up most of his face. "Welcome back to Skyhold, ugly."

 

~~~

 

"When will we meet her?" demanded Fenris once they were bathed and dressed in dry clothes and eating dinner beside the roaring fire in the little private dining room the inner circle claimed as their own. "This Inquisitor no one will shut up about."

"She's feeling a little under the weather today," Varric admitted and cleared his throat in a way that he hoped was very casual and not at all an indication of how awkward he felt about the idea of a pregnant Hal. They'd found out a month ago and she'd made it very clear that they were not to tell anyone or speak openly about it. So they discussed it late at night in the Bull's quarters with a lot of liquor and swearing in the same way they had to talk about this whole elven god nonsense. Varric had suggested that Hal tell Merrill what she knew, but the Inquisitor was being stubborn and wary, which he supposed he understood, given her situation, and had only agreed to think about it. She had been meant to meet them at the gate with him, but she'd been throwing up all morning, no matter how many herbal concoctions the other women made her drink or chew or sleep with under her pillow.

"Poor thing!" cried Merrill sympathetically. "Perhaps I could do something for her?"

Varric gave her a fond half-smile and shook his head. "She's got healers a-plenty, Daisy, but it's a sweet offer."

The Hawke sisters and Fenris were both in foul moods, tired and sore and still flexing their fingers to regain the feeling, but Merrill was chipper and bright as always. "Is it really true she's Dalish?"

"Maker, Merrill," groaned Hawke, "I've only told you a million times already.  _Yes_ , she's Dalish. She has the tattoos and everything."

Oh. Shit.

"Uh," began Varric awkwardly, "about that..."

But Merrill ran right over him with growing enthusiasm. "Just imagine! A Dalish elf from the Free Marches, running all of this! It's so inspiring, don't you think! All these different people working together! Why, I saw from a window earlier a Templar kissing a mage out in the rain!"

"Inspiring's not the word I would choose," Fenris grumped, and Bethany rolled her eyes. 

"Go take a nap, Fenris," she sniped.

Poor Hawke dropped her head into her hands with a groan. Varric could imagine the whole long trip must have been like this, constantly mediating between Fenris and the two mages. It made him simultaneously grateful he wasn't with them and homesick for their years in Kirkwall together. Before everything exploded.

"Maker!" Hawke yelped as the door behind her burst open and slammed against the wall with a heavy crack of solid wood.

"Found 'im!" bellowed the Bull the moment he set eyes on Varric. "Hey, Varric! Boss was lookin' for ya!" The massive Qunari wandered in and dropped into the equally formidable chair they'd had built just for him after one of Josie's fancy ones had collapsed underneath him. He folded his forearms on the table with enough force to clatter their empty plates and slosh the drinks in their mugs and took his time staring down Fenris and the two mages. When he was satisfied with whatever conclusions he's drawn, he clapped a hand a little too hard on Hawke's back and she jerked forward with a wince. "Hawke! Welcome back! I take it these are the friends we've been expecting!"

"Iron Bull," greeted Hawke as she rubbed irritably at the spot he'd hit. "This is Fenris, Merrill, and my sister, Bethany. Everyone, this is Iron Bull."

"The," corrected the Qunari jovially. "Technically it's The Iron Bull."

"Tiny," said Varric, choosing to use his own version of the warrior's name, "Hal's looking for me? She's up?"

Bull laughed. "She got fed up being fussed over by Josie and the healers, so we broke her out of her quarters and smuggled her to the undercroft. She's sort of...curled up in a corner with a bucket, pulling pieces of the Fade for Dagna. We figured better we spring her and know where she is than she gets restless and everybody panics."

"Pulling pieces of the Fade?" Bethany echoed. She and Merrill exchanged baffled looks, each expecting the other's cultural magic to cover whatever that meant. Fenris just looked disapproving.

"It's...complicated," Varric decided. "Basically this girl is a magnet for shit not even you guys would bel--"

"BULL!" came Dorian's voice from down the hall.

"IN HERE!"

Hawke whimpered and rubbed her temples.

Dorian's heavy footsteps were echoing off the stone walls and headed their way, and perhaps if Varric weren't still thinking about Hal, he would have realized what was coming. Maybe he could have prevented it. But he was distracted. "Tiny, why's Hal looking for me?"

"Oh!" laughed Bull. "She and Dagna are dipping bolts for Bianca in the Fade and she wanted your opinion. Plus I think she wanted to know when your people arrived."

"Bull," chided Dorian as he headed through the open door. "Did you find-- oh! Varric, good! Hal wants--" That was when the Tevinter noble laid eyes on the former Tevinter slave, and the former's eyes went wide just as the latter's narrowed dangerously. " _Hello_ , gorgeous!" he gasped, and before Hawke or Varric could even get to their feet, he was reaching for the brooding elf. 

 _No_ , Varric realized too late,  _that idiot is reaching for his tattoos!_

"Maker's breath!" fawned Dorian, barreling toward Fenris, who sat rigid in his chair like a snake preparing to strike. "Are these  _lyrium_? They must have cost a--"

Fenris struck and struck hard, snatching Dorian's wrist before he could touch skin and twisting as far as it would naturally go, putting it at an awkward, near-breaking angle. Dorian grunted his pain and his magic flared, lightning from magic butting violently against lightning from lyrium.

The whole room was on its feet in a heart beat, Varric trying to free Dorian, Bull looming furiously over Fenris, Hawke and Bethany trying to pull the elf away, and poor Merrill standing horrified by the door.

Yeah. Varric really should have seen that coming.


	2. Chapter 2

" _Fenris!_ " Hawke snapped, grasping his face in both hands and forcing him to look at her. He was shaking and furious and mentally somewhere else entirely, but she'd become an expert at diffusing his episodes. Sometimes she seemed more like his handler than his lover and she was no saint -- she'd lost her patience with him more frequently than she would admit -- but she never gave up on him. Never stopped trying. 

_What is it with the women in my life and their blighted broody elves?_

"Fenris," she said again, more calmly, when he finally focused his eyes on her face and his expression became a battle between his rage and his better nature. "Let him go. Just let him go." With monumental effort, the elf pulled his fingers from Dorian's wrist and took a step back. The room was a flurry of activity as the group pushed the two men to opposite walls, Hawke between Fenris and Varric, who was keeping Bull at bay, and Bull between Varric and Dorian. Bethany joined Merrill near the door, both of them tense and alert in case they needed to toss up a barrier.

"What..." Fenris snarled, his voice so low he was practically inaudible. "What...is that  _slave_ -owning piece of  _shit_ doing here!" _  
_

Varric rounded on Hawke incredulously. "You didn't tell him?!" 

"I was going to!" she cried defensively, only daring to glance at the dwarf so she could keep an eye on the live wire against the wall. "Tonight! You didn't tell yours either!"

Varric's jaw fell and he floundered in agitation for a moment before he pointed an accusing finger at Dorian. "Yes, I did! He's just a moron!" Bull took a step toward Varric and the dwarf leveled a look at the Qunari that said he wasn't helping.

Fenris' already twisted expression turned horrified, betrayed, enraged, and this time it was aimed firmly at Hawke. "You  _knew_?! You  _knew_ and you said nothing!"

"Would you have come otherwise!" Hawke argued, struggling to keep her voice down so as not to exacerbate the situation. "I swear to you, Fenris, you will be glad you came. The Inquisitor wants the same things you do, but you wouldn't have come at all if you knew he was with her!"

"No!" Fenris agreed sharply, "I would  _not_ have come! If  _this_ is what she had in mind, our goals are  _not_ the same!"

" _This_ is Fenris?!" Dorian blurted, his voice cracking. He had been soothing his hurt wrist with his magic like a petulant child, but now he finally seemed to understand. "Maker's breath,  _this_ is the slave?! No wonder you told me to avoid him!"

 _Oh, for Andraste's sake, Dorian!_ Varric cringed inwardly.

"I AM  _NOT_ A  _SLAVE_!" Fenris roared. Hawke shot Dorian, who was recoiling in shock, a nasty look and stepped directly in front of Fenris to pull his attention back to her face.

"No, you're not a slave," came a soft, worried voice from the door. "But Dorian is not what you think. He came to us to stop Corypheus, but he stays to help us _end_ slavery in Tevinter." Hal looked rough, but she'd been worse. She had one shaky hand on the doorframe and the other held a thick housecoat closed at her chest. Her silver hair was pulled back from her face in a messy, utilitarian braid, and her skin was pasty and just a little green. "I can't imagine what you've been through. No one should have their free will stolen from them."

Perhaps it was the gentleness of her words in the middle of such an uproar or the confusion of the newcomers -- even Hawke was gaping -- but just Hal's presence seemed to calm the room. Dorian's concern for her overcame his sulking and defensiveness and he moved quickly to her side to offer her his arm. She hesitated only briefly, her eyes watching Fenris appraisingly, and accepted his help. Bull was already pulling out a chair for her at the time. The standoff seemed to have fizzled into tension and uncertainty just as quickly as it began.

Hal sank gratefully into the offered seat and swallowed carefully, her gaze avoiding the remnants of food on the table. She did not acknowledge Hawke or Merrill or Bethany or even Varric; all of her attention was on cornered, wild Fenris. "I had meant to meet you at the gate with Varric," she told him, and Varric was immediately reminded of the way she spoke to skittish animals. "I'm sorry I was unable to greet his dear friends properly. I have heard -- and read -- such incredible things about all of you. And some of it might even be true." Where she normally would have smirked at her dwarven companion, she instead gave the tiniest ghost of a smile to the male elf. He repaid it with a resurgence of his scowl.

Fenris let out a harsh, angry and, disbelieving laugh. " _You_?!" He turned to Hawke and Varric, gesturing violently in the young woman's direction. "This  _sickly_ _girl_ is the mighty Inquisitor?!"

Bull and Dorian took twin protective steps toward Hal, but she gave Fenris a lopsided grin and a breathy laugh. "That's what I ask myself every time I see my reflection."

The tattooed man fumed and huffed, glaring suspicious daggers at Hal and shooting lethal looks at Dorian, who stood behind her with a hand on the back of her chair. Finally, when he could no longer stand to be in the room, he turned sharply to Hawke. "I'm going for a walk."

"Okay," was all she said. She stepped aside to let Fenris by and he stalked out, shoulders hunched and glowering at Dorian in warning.

"Well," said Varric lightly in the silence that followed, "at least you have him using his words."

Hawke dropped into the nearest chair and put her face in her hands. The whole room seemed to take a breath for the first time in a good ten minutes.

"Dorian?" Hal asked, twisting to look at him and placing her hand on his. "Steer clear of him, okay? I don't want you two in the same room."

"I didn't--" Dorian started in protest, but she shook her head apologetically. "You called him a slave. Plus whatever it was that set him off in the first place. I know you didn't mean it. Just steer clear, please?" He gave her a thin, embarrassed smile of acquiescence and leaned down to kiss her hair.

"How y'feelin', Hal?" Varric asked. He lifted his brows and offered her a helpless smirk, his way of saying sorry for the chaos.

"Oh, just grand," she replied drolly. "Never better, really." And then, finally, with a mustered smile, she turned her attention to the Champion of Kirkwall. "You really know how to make an entrance, don't you, Hawke."

Hawke dragged her hands down her face and quirked a brow in Hal's direction. "It's no walk in the Fade, but I do my best."

The women shared a world-weary smile. "It's good to see you again." She paused for a moment, touching her lips with the back of her hand and swallowing, and then letting her thoughtful gaze find the two women mages standing in silence by the door. It was heartwarming to see her take on Merrill's tattooed face and brighten, strengthen even at the familiarity of the Dalish. If Varric hadn't calmed her worries about Merrill's hand in the death of her Keeper and why she'd been cast out, he would have had no idea Hal had any misgivings at all. "Andaran atish'an, lethallan." 

Merrill had been staring openly at Hal; she lacked the guile to hide that kind of shock and Varric hadn't gotten the opportunity to tell her what had happened. It was also Merrill's openness that let them watch her struggle between deeply emotional gratitude -- there were few Dalish elves who would speak to her these days, much less welcome her and call her kin -- and an intense morbid curiosity. It was the latter that won. "I'm sorry to be staring, Inquisitor, but I was told you were from Clan Lavellan!"

Hal's smile was patient and warm, even if it was slightly strained. Varric knew she'd been dreading this conversation. "I am from Clan Lavellan," she replied simply.

Merrill glanced in confusion from Hal to Varric to Hawke, who shrugged cluelessly. "Then it's true?" the former First gasped, eyes going even bigger than usual. It was so strange to see them together, his two Dalish girls. Merrill was the elder of the two, but she looked and acted so much younger. Hal's energy was so grounded, Merrill's so flighty. "You had your vallaslin removed? I had heard rumors, but I thought sure they must be nonsense!"

"I did," Hal answered, her brow knitting. She showed no signs of regret. It was merely a statement of fact. But Varric noticed the way her shoulders tensed, as if waiting for judgment. As if Merrill were in any position to give it.

"By the Dread Wolf!" exclaimed the mage. The tension was suddenly back in the room, but only from the members of the Inquisition. They didn't know Merrill, couldn't know that she used that phrase all the time. 

And then Hal let out a surprised, delighted laugh.


	3. Chapter 3

It was good to see Merrill so happy. Of course, some part of Merrill was always happy, but it had been a long time since she'd lit up quite as she had in conversation with the Inquisitor. Hal'lasean, as she'd insisted to her fellow Dalish. And while she seemed used to the title, Hawke of all people couldn't miss the tell-tale signs of discomfort. She'd been awkward enough when Kirkwall had taken to calling her Champion; she had no envy at all for a young elf woman who found herself the Herald and head of a religious order that wasn't her own and didn't welcome her kind. And since everyone who loved her apparently called her Hal and because Hawke had fought by her side, the human woman decided she would make a point to try the moniker out on this visit. Hal had beamed at her the first time she'd used it, all gratitude. 

Merrill and Hal had become fast friends, to the point that when Varric, Dorian, and Bull had offered to take the Kirkwall crew on a tour of Skyhold, the Hawke sisters were the only ones to take them up on it. Fenris was out and about somewhere, being angry at her and the world, and when Merrill realized that Hal, who was looking a little better but still feeling slightly weak, wouldn't be joining them, she had declared her intentions to stay behind as well.

When they'd left the dining room, Hal was trying to keep down some soup and bread and Merrill was chatting amiably with her in rapid-fire Elvish.

"Well," said Varric with a laugh as they wandered the main hall, "looks like Hal's finally met her match. We'll be lucky to get two human words out of them for the rest of the trip."

"It's good to see the Boss with her people," Bull rumbled warmly. "I mean, we're her people, but...her Dalish people. I know she misses her clan."

"I don't think I've ever seen Merrill so excited," agreed Bethany, "and that's saying something." Varric laughed appreciatively.

"Yeah," began Hawke, "about Hal's clan...what the hell happened to her tattoos?"

Dorian and Bull exchanged a look, but Varric let out a sigh. "Listen, Hawke, you know I love to tell a good tale -- and that one's part of a doozy -- but it's her story, so you'll have to ask her."

"Do be gentle about it, though," Dorian requested, and when Hawke stared back at him stonily, he cleared his throat and tweaked his mustache. "Bull, don't we have that...thing Hal asked us to do?"

"No," replied Bull in confusion. "She just wanted us to find Var-- oh. Oh, yeah, that other thing. I...forgot."

Dorian rolled his eyes and started to reach out to shake Hawke's hand, but thought better of it. "Right, well. I am...sorry about..." Hawke lifted her brows and he decided to just cut his losses. He grabbed Bull's hand and dragged him away. Bull tossed them a shrug.

When it was only the sisters and Varric, Hawke turned her irritability on the dwarf. "You need to teach your friend about personal space."

"You need to tell your lover when he's probably about to run into a Tevinter noble in close quarters!" Varric shot back.

"You both need to shut up and let it go," Bethany opined, dropping her arms limp at her sides and looking up at the ceiling as though she were the martyred Andraste. "Fenris is always angry and it was the only way to get him here. He'll get over it."

"I'm more worried about him tearing Dorian's heart from his chest," Hawke grumbled.

"Yeah," Varric sighed, "that won't end well for anybody."

"I'll talk to Fenris, but you know how well that usually goes over."

"Hal is gonna keep an eye on Dorian," Varric assured her. "And so will I. He's a good guy, just...not always the most self-aware. You know how nobles can be."

Bethany let out a hard laugh. "Oooh yes. Yes, we do." She glanced at her sister hopefully and Hawke made a show of surrender, as if letting the Tevinter/slave fiasco go were exceedingly difficult. "Good! So now we can get to the fun part! I've been dying to meet the former Grand Enchanter and I heard you built a mage tower! Oh, and what were you going to say about the Inquisitor pulling pieces of the Fade? I thought she couldn't do magic!"

"Now  _that_ is a story I can tell!" Varric replied cheerfully. He turned around to face them and walked backwards through the first set of doors they passed with a familiarity that sent a small stab of jealousy through Hawke. Both because Varric had found a new batch of misfits and because Varric seemed to have found a home, while she and the others were always on the move. She missed her estate and the feel of coming back to it after a long journey. She missed her mabari greeting her at the door. Her faithful Falconer had died six months ago on the road, which she supposed she should have been expecting. That was one very old dog. But it had hit her brutally hard. It was the last piece she had of Lothering, of her father, of her mother and Carver. Well, no. She had Bethany. But her sister hadn't been through quite what she had. Her sister had been tucked away safely in the Circle for most of their time in Kirkwall. Until the Circle stopped being safe. But by then most of Hawke's life had already happened. The betrayals, the duels, the assassination attempts, the endless blood magic and constant run-ins with slavers. She'd fallen in love. Twice. Both with men who were irreparably damaged, which must say something profound about her, but she could never quite figure out what. She had taken a dagger to the back of one of those men, had held him as he died. Had put him down like a rabid dog. Maybe that's why Falconer's death had been so hard. 

"Sparrow?" Bethany asked, and Hawke jerked up in surprise. They were waiting at the door to the stairs for her, but somewhere along the way she had stopped in a painted tower room to run her fingers over an elven mural of a wolf.

"Hawke, you comin'?" asked Varric worriedly.

"She does this all the time now," her sister told the dwarf.

"I'm just tired," Hawke insisted, and she forced a smile. "I think I'm just gonna go to bed." She pointed threateningly at Varric. "Don't get her into trouble."

"What, me?" He flashed her a grin. "Feel better, Hawke."

"That's the plan." It had been the plan since she had single-handedly destroyed the city she called home. Well, she couldn't take all the credit. Anders and Meredith started it. She just finished it. She wondered if Hal was as exhausted as she was. The Inquisitor had been through arguably as much, but in a much shorter period of time.

She had left Kirkwall as soon as she could in the wake of the carnage, driven by guilt mostly, by dreams of Anders' stupid puppy face, already forgiving her as his life leaked out the wound she'd made. The plan had always been to feel better, to find a way to get better. But she was beginning to think she never would.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hawke."

He stood up the moment she opened the door to their shared quarters. They had been given some kind of suite so that they each had a bedroom -- Varric had made sure of that for them -- just in case one or both of them decided they needed to not be touched for a while.

But Fenris was sitting on the bed she'd claimed, apparently waiting for her. Nothing appeared broken or smashed, which was a good sign. Truthfully, she'd assumed she was going to have to track him down. But he'd been getting better. Maybe because she had gotten worse and he figured one of them would need to be mostly functional at any given time. It wasn't as though they could count on Merrill and Bethany in a crunch.

He wasn't smiling, but he never was. And he wasn't glaring, so she smiled. "I'm sorry, Fenris," she said immediately. "I know that doesn't make it better, but I knew you'd be glad you came if I could just get you here. They're our best hope of taking down Tevinter, of freeing the slaves. We can't just wander around the Marches killing slavers forever. We take one down and three more take his place."

"I don't want him near me," growled the elf dangerously. "I'll kill him." That was good. That meant he wasn't holding the lying against her. Or at least not admitting to it. It would no doubt come back to bite her in several months in an unrelated fight.

Hawke stepped gingerly closer, giving him ample space to lash out if he didn't like it, but he didn't so much as flinch. They had come such a long way. "The Inquisitor already talked to him. He's not allowed to be in the same room as you. He's to avoid you completely."

Fenris let out a hard laugh and moved past her to the fancy little private Orlesian bar in the common area between their rooms and the wash room. He opened a decanter of something red and poured them two glasses. And in the meanwhile, he griped. "She no doubt just wants to keep her little Tevinter pet safe."

Hawke took the second glass as an invitation for her to be nearer, and given just how much she was longing for some very needed physical contact, it was a welcome sign. She moved slowly and leaned her hip into his, so that they touched, but only through their clothing. He cast a glance at her but didn't move away. Instead, he passed her one of the cups and took a long drink of his.

"Don't underestimate Hal'lasean, Fenris," she murmured, sipping at what turned out to be some kind of bitter red wine. "Don't misjudge her. Varric may like to exaggerate, but he's not prone to hero worship. But, Maker, the way he writes and talks about this Dalish girl." She hesitated and added, "She didn't just tell him not to go near you. She also chastised him for calling you a slave. She laid the blame with him." Albeit gently. And then Hawke realized something else that was particularly extraordinary. "And he accepted it. Her criticism. She told him he was wrong and he accepted what she said. He didn't even argue."

"He's a Tevinter noble," scoffed Fenris. "He probably doesn't have the spine to argue."

She rolled her eyes and dared to rest her chin on his shoulder, pushing their clothed bodies closer. He lifted a brow but didn't resist. He was like a cat that way: his tolerance was as enthusiastic an endorsement as he would give. Except, of course, for those rare, beautiful moments when he would join her in her bed. Then his enthusiasm knew no bounds. Until the next day, of course, when he was sullen and furious and wanted to be left alone with whatever memories had returned to him. "You might try to keep your insults about him to yourself when we're in mixed company. He's well-regarded here." She paused thoughtfully, taking a sip of her drink. Fenris was already pouring himself another. "He was with us, you know. In the Fade. The Warden, the Inquisitor, Varric, and two mages. One of them was the Inquisitor's elven lover. The other was Dorian. He saved my life in there at least twice that I saw. Possibly more."

Fenris' lip curled as he thought that over, disgruntled by his own conflicted feelings as always. He tossed back the second drink and walked away, leaving Hawke to rebalance to his sudden absence. "So I won't kill him," he grumbled eventually. Hawke didn't bother to hide her smirk. " _Yet_."

"Oh," laughed Hawke, flourishing a deep, sarcastic bow. "You are too magnanimous!"

He smirked. Just a little. It was enough.

"Are you too angry to kiss me?" she wondered.

The smirk grew. It was pathetic how much she craved his minimal affection. Her heart swelled just at that small hint of his buried love. She bit her bottom lip and he took a step closer. Her body responded fiercely to the promise that one gesture made.

"I'm furious. But this is our first night alone in months."

She grinned, her heart racing. "You always did know how to sweet talk me."


	5. Chapter 5

The halls of Skyhold had echoed gently with Dalish song, some rowdy and debauched, some sweet and mournful. Hal and Merrill had started singing mostly as an accident; they had moved to Merrill's quarters to look at some of the elven crafts and artifacts she'd brought with her, and one had sparked a memory for Hal, who asked if Merrill had ever heard a particular song or if it belonged only to her clan. Merrill knew it. And then they were singing. And it felt so good, so much like home even inside the stone walls, even without the sky overhead and the campfires and aravels all around that when that song ended, they tried another. And another. They sang every song they knew until their voices were tired. Hal kept waiting for someone to knock on the door and tell them to go to bed, but nobody did. 

She'd parted from Merrill that night with promises she'd meet with her in the morning -- they had made plans to go see Hal's Eluvian -- and dreamt of her clan for the first time in a very long time. And for once, her dreams of her clan didn't involve them shunning her for her bare face or being the Herald or the things she'd done and the people she loved. For once, she dreamed that her clan welcomed her home with open arms. They feasted on her favorite Dalish foods and drank her favorite Dalish wines and danced the celebratory dances of their people. The Storyteller with whom she'd lived as a child told the little ones how they'd found her sleeping with the halla and took her in when they discovered her parents' bodies in the woods. She was twice a foundling, he told them: once found with the clan's halla, once found in the ruins of the Conclave. She told them she was pregnant with the child of an Elvhen, a member of the pantheon, and for once they didn't demand to know which god. She woke up refreshed and happy and ate breakfast without feeling nauseated even a little.

They met in the main hall bright and early and tramped down in their overcoats and boots to the kitchens so they could pack a lunch of bread and fruit and cheese. They filled their skins with water and strapped their chosen weapons to their backs and snuck out the gate to the mountains beyond before most of Skyhold was even awake. They talked as they walked, of Keepers and Firsts and the coming Arlathvhen. Merrill became bashful and ashamed as she explained how Clan Sabrae had lost its leader, and though Hal already knew the story from Varric, she was soothed and sympathetic to hear the agony in Merrill's voice.

They were halfway to the cave that housed their magic mirror when Merrill asked the question that must have been burning in her mind all night: "Hal'lasean, you told me last night that you might explain why you removed your vallaslin when we weren't around so many ears. Will you tell me now?"

Hal let out a sigh and tilted her head at Merrill as they walked, her brow knitting in worried contemplation. Merrill would be the first Dalish elf she told about the truth of their tattoos, were she to tell the truth at all. But she thought of the pain she felt even now, how sometimes she wished he'd never told her, and she was reluctant to give that unshakable weight to someone who put so much stock in the ancient elves. To someone who had been raised to be a Keeper. But if she was going to be able to talk to this woman about her hopes for the future of The People, for her plans for the ascendancy of Elvhenan, she would have to start with those very truths.

"It won't be a pleasant conversation," she admitted apologetically. "Especially for you. Are you sure you want to know?"

"By the Dread Wolf, yes!" Merrill exclaimed.

Hal rubbed her hand on the back of her neck and let out a nervous laugh. "You're going to want to say that a little less around here." But she didn't give the mage time to wonder what she meant. "There are many things about Elvhenan and even the Dales that our people don't know or remember, correct?" Merrill nodded. "Would you be offended if I suggested that some of what we do think we know or remember...is wrong? Or, if it's right, we may have misinterpreted it?"

The other elf considered that for some time, struggling openly with Dalish pride and her thirst for knowledge and the logic of what Hal was asking. Finally, she crossed her arms protectively over her stomach and gave a nod. "Yes, I suppose that could be true. But our people have been studying our history for countless generations now! And then there's our oral history from the Keepers and the Storytellers."

Hal nodded her agreement because there was nothing else to be done. She wouldn't get anywhere with Merrill if she started off debating every little thing she said, and it seemed a better idea to coax the former First into the things she was going to tell her with pieces of things they both knew to be true so that maybe those could act as rafts when poor Merrill inevitably started to drown in just how much the Dalish had gotten wrong. Hal felt endlessly cruel for this. "Varric told me once that your clan took in a young halfelven mage who was a Fadewalker. Is that true?"

"Oh, yes," Merrill agreed easily enough. "Feynriel. Though it was after I had left my clan for Kirkwall. Eventually he went to Tevinter to study because we only remember so much about such a rare gift. It's such a shame, really, but what choice did he have?"

Hal smiled despite the seriousness of the subject matter. Because Fadewalking was exactly what she wanted to discuss, and, as terrible as this conversation was going to be, Merrill's willingness to be led along made it just a little bit easier. "I know a Fadewalker as well," she admitted softly, and one hand trailed subconscious fingers across her lower belly. "He spends much of his time sleeping in battlefields or Elvhen ruins to experience the memories and imprints left there in the Fade. He has seen Arlathan fall just as clearly as he has witnessed the events of the yesterday." She took a breath and didn't bother to hide her flush and smile, both at the thought of Fen'Harel and at the little pieces of truth she was feeding Merrill. Her love would approve. It was what he had done with her. "He's taken me with him to see these things. And while every memory in the Fade is biased, there are certain truths to be found."

Merrill stopped in their footpath and stared dumbfounded at her fellow Dalish elf, her jaw hanging and her eyes even larger in her face than usual. "Are you trying to tell me you've _seen_ the fall of Arlathan?!"

"Oh," laughed Hal, "no. Not yet. I haven't, but he--" Was there. Feels responsible for it. Locked away the gods. Is the Dread Wolf. "He's spent his life studying Elvhenan." She sucked in a deep breath. This was it. This was her first attempt to speak truth to her people. If she still believed in gods, she would have prayed to one now. Please let this go smoothly. "I'm sorry, Merrill. But the Dalish...we've been wrong. We've been so wrong about so many things. We're...we're like children, making up stories about why the world is the way it is. We see things moving in the dark and we tell each other they're monsters."

The other elf shook her head, her brows knitting together in her confusion and wariness. It was a dangerous, blasphemous path they were walking, but Varric had said that Merrill would understand, that Merrill would want to know. It's why they'd sent for her in the first place. She was a test, and, hopefully, would be a steadfast ally in the years to come. They would need all the allies they could find. "I don't understand. What are you trying to say?"

Hal touched her face, ran fingers over her forehead and nose, down her lip to her chin, all the places her vallaslin once marked her as Dalish. She had been so proud of it. And now... "You asked why I had my vallaslin removed," she ventured softly, already cringing in anticipation of Merrill's reaction. "One of the truths I've learned from my Fadewalker is...that Elvhenan was not the paradise we imagine it to be. It was beautiful and magic was as easy as breathing. The Elvhen were immortal and unchallenged in all of Thedas. That is all true. But the vallaslin were not a way to honor the gods, Merrill. The vallaslin..." Her cheeks heated. "They were to mark us as slaves."

There were many ways she'd assumed Merrill might respond. Hal had thought perhaps tears or rage or suspicion. Despair, accusation, shocked silence. These were all perfectly understandable answers to what was essentially a complete reversal of all the things they'd ever been taught. She had not, however, expected Merrill to laugh. But she did. The older elf laughed and started walking again, squeezing Hal's shoulder on the way past. "That was quite good, Hal'lasean! You had me worried!"

Now it was Hal's turn to stand dumbfounded on the foot path. "Merrill, what's so funny? Didn't you hear what I said?"

"Yes, and it was a very good prank!" Merrill giggled. "You can tell Varric he definitely got me."

"Merrill." Hal stayed where she was, crossing her arms under her chest and watching her new friend's progress through the trees slow when she realized the Inquisitor wasn't following. "Merrill, I would never joke about something like this. I know you don't know me very well, but I swear to you..." On what? On the gods? "May the Dread Wolf take me if I'm lying." May the Dread Wolf take her even if she wasn't. Merrill was dead still on the path ahead, her shoulders hunched and her back to Hal. But she was listening now. Truly listening. "The gods were not truly gods at all, not the way we...not the way we envision them. Powerful, yes, and immortal. With magic beyond our comprehension. But our vallaslin weren't worn to honor them. They were brands. So that when we walked through Arlathan, they could tell at a glance whether we were property or people, and to which member of the pantheon we belonged."

Her kin was quiet for some time, so quiet that the only sound was the wind through the trees, the scampering of squirrels in the limbs overhead. "That can't be true," she murmured eventually, her voice thick. "There's some mistake." She whirled around to look at Hal now, her expression a strained mixture of free fall and fury. "How could you possibly know something like that, when no one else in all our history has learned it! How!"

"My Fadewalker," Hal replied gently, her face all sympathy for Merrill's struggle. "I...had been in the Temple of Mythal and drank from a well that...granted me certain knowledge, but at a price. In exchange for this incredible boon, I became Mythal's vassal. I had worn Mythal's vallaslin, but after she truly owned me, my Fadewalker...told me the truth of the vallaslin's origins. He asked me if I wanted them removed. Told me he knew how. And I agreed. I...I wouldn't have accepted his offer if I had had any doubts, Merrill. I would never have given up my clan like that if I wasn't sure he was right. We roam Thedas in our aravels because we prize our freedom. But we mark ourselves in adulthood with the very signs of our ancestral bondage."

There were tears in Merrill's eyes now, but they were equally matched with her anger and her frustration. "Do you have any proof?"

Hal sighed sharply and tightened her arms around her ribs. She was hoping she wouldn't have to do this. She wasn't as experienced as Fen'Harel, was still learning to seek out the memories she needed in the Fade, and was definitely not comfortable letting just anyone into her dreams. But it was the fastest way and it didn't involve disturbing her Wolf in the field. "Find me in the Fade tonight. I'll have proof for you there."


	6. Chapter 6

The women continued on their path in silence for quite a while, Hal carefully allowing Merrill the space and time to consider what she had said. She had no desire to push or bully the other elf, even if she was desperate to have one of her kin on her side, to be able to talk about these new truths in the context of the stories that had raised them. None of her other friends could understand quite the sort of turmoil it caused, although each of them had at least some little experience in leaving behind their people, willingly or not. Fiona wasn't Dalish and the last time she'd tried to have an actual talk with Sera, the city elf had laughed cruelly in her newly unmarked face. And though Fen'Harel was developing some sort of respect and fondness for the Dalish for her sake and because he and Dorian had been asking her since they saved her from her own mind for tales of her clan, her people, he still didn't know what it was like. Couldn't know. And so Hal was anxious for Merrill to come around, eager in a way that made her feel deeply guilty. She also had to keep reminding herself that Merrill was no more typical of her people than she was, that just because Merrill might come to terms with these things didn't mean anyone else would be willing or able. No matter what happened with the other elf on the trail beside her, she couldn't conflate that outcome with the ultimate fate of The People.

And, of course, once Merrill accepted the truth of the vallaslin, of the slavery that was rampant in Elvhenan, Hal would face the monumental task of explaining that she had not only met two of the gods in person, but that the Dread Wolf was actually the hero of the tales, the liberator of The People. Then and only then, if Merrill took all of that in and didn't hate Hal for telling her, didn't shatter under the weight of the lies she had lived, if Merrill stayed and seemed interested in rebuilding what was lost,  _then_ they would introduce her to Fen'Harel. It was a daunting amount of information to pile on someone, she knew that from first hand experience, but Merrill would have to process it in a much shorter period of time than she had. But at least the Sabrae girl wouldn't have to process it while nursing a shattered heart.

"Supposing you're right," said Merrill quietly when they were nearing the cave that sheltered her Eluvian, "it doesn't mean what it did then. Not anymore. It  _is_ a rite of passage now. It says we're Dalish! And that's...isn't that something you're proud to be?"

Hal's face flushed and she grabbed for Merrill's elbow so that she could be sure the other elf saw just how earnest she was when she replied. " _Yes_ ," she swore. "Of course it is! Merrill, I didn't remove them because I'm ashamed to be Dalish. I  _love_ our people. I...removed them because..." She looked up at the canopy of pine and exhaled audibly through her nose. "For several reasons," she admitted carefully, and made herself look Merrill in the eyes. "I had just sworn myself to Mythal's service, but not out of loyalty to her. I did it to save knowledge of the Elvhen from a shemlen mage who was desperate for it. It wasn't hers to have, so I... _I_ drank from Mythal's well. But during my time with the Inquisition, we've found countless temples and ruins and artifacts and each time, we discover a little more of the truth. I didn't want to belong to anyone. Not even the All-Mother. I couldn't let someone else control the head of such a massive force in Thedas. It was defiance. And it was...I'm _not_ just Dalish anymore, Merrill. I can't be. I will always be Dalish, always, in my heart, but I don't have the luxury now of making choices only for myself. I have to make them knowing that they will effect everyone in Thedas, no matter their race, no matter how or where they live. And..." Her cheeks were pink but her ears were bright red. "And my Fadewalker. My Fadewalker is my whole heart. He was...he wanted so much for me to see the truth of it. It meant more to him to set me free than it did for me to keep it." She let out a soft, self-deprecating laugh. "Perhaps I'm not a very good Dalish girl after all."

Merrill considered all of this thoughtfully, her delicate features crinkled with effort. Then her expression softened, her eyes grew damp, and she gave Hal a sympathetic, mournful little ghost of a smile. "At least you haven't got our people's blood on your hands."

The Inquisitor's face filled with sorrow for Merrill's pain, but it was her own fears that made her lips tremble. And it was understanding that slipped her hand into the other girl's. "Not yet," she murmured. Their fingers tightened together in silent support as they continued along, picking over logs and stones as the trail widened and the cliffside that housed their destination came into view through the forest.

"Hal'lasean?" Hal looked up in answer and Merrill chewed worriedly at her bottom lip. "You don't expect me to remove  _my_ vallaslin, do you?"

"No!" promised the hunter without hesitation. "No! Oh, Merrill, no. That's...as the truth of this begins to spread, I...I think it is essential that each person get to choose for themselves. Because you're right. It doesn't mean what it once did. If you want to keep them, you should."

Realization dawned across Merrill's visage like the Breach had once loomed grimly above the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. "You're going to tell them all," she breathed with something between wonder and horror. "You want all the clans to know!"

"Eventually," Hal confessed, her brows lifting to show she knew how difficult and costly that would be for everyone involved. "There are so many things we've learned in our battle against Corypheus. So many things about Elvhenan and The People. And they deserve to know who they are, Merrill. They all do -- the city elves and the Dalish and the slaves in Tevinter. They deserve to know. We deserve a home."

Merrill stopped in the path again, dropping Hal's hand, her whole face slack as she finally began to comprehend just what it was this other woman had in mind, just what the Inquisitor had been gently leading her toward all this time. "You're going to try to rebuild it."

"No," and Hal shook her head. "I'm going to build it  _better_."

"But-- but--" Merrill stammered, her jaw hanging at the sheer audacity of Hal's statement. "But  _how_! They'll never let us have the land! They'll fight us, they'll-- they'll  _kill_ us!" She clapped a hand over her mouth as her eyes went overlarge in dismay. " _That's_ what you meant?! That's what you meant when you said 'not yet'?!"

Hal's cheeks heated with shame and guilt, but she reached again for Merrill's arm, and to her genuine surprise, the other elf didn't try to pull away. It was a good sign, she thought. A sign that Merrill wanted to be convinced. And Hal could do just that. "I told you, Merrill," she began soothingly, giving her voice as much authority as she could without making it harsh, "I can't just be Dalish anymore. I have to make decisions for all of Thedas -- the Qun, the dwarves, the shems, and the elves. There are... _plans_ in place. Plans that will take...years, decades even. Maybe more. But I'm a Dalish elf at the head of the most powerful, most influential organization in the land, an organization with monarchs in its pocket and agents everywhere. The Inquisition is  _everywhere_ , Merrill. The new Divine was my  _spymaster_! She's my friend! My inner circle alone is comprised of a former Qunari spy, a famous dwarven author, Nevarran and Antivan nobility, the former second in command of Kirkwall's Templars, the most powerful Circle mages from Orlais, a man who could one day ascend to the Tevinter Magisterium, a woman with an incredibly valuable reach among the people society pretends are invisible, and..." It was time. Hal braced herself. "And an ancient Elvhen Fadewalker. Who is, at this very moment, wandering Thedas, repairing and activating every Eluvian he can find. There will be nowhere to hide from the Inquisition. And I would use all of this, Merrill, all of this power and reach...I would use it to help The People. All of us. But I intend to do so while helping the dwarves and the Qun and the common folk of every human nation as well. By the time I'm finished with Thedas, the only power that will stand against us will be the blood mages of the Magisterium. And even they won't be a match for us by then."

If Merrill's mouth opened any more, it would dislocate from her skull and fall to the ground. She was still covering it with her hand, but her hand was as limp as her face was contorted, so it wasn't much help. Hal watched her with her sharpest focus, taking in the slightest twitch of the other elf's brows, the way she swallowed, her racing pulse against her fingers. She wasn't sure just how Merrill would react to learning so much so quickly; she was putting a lot of faith in Varric's ability to judge the people around him and her own gut instinct about this Sabrae First. She had no idea what she'd do if this backfired. She'd have to just let Merrill go and hope that no one would listen should she try to warn the clans, the shems, whoever she might decide to tell. She couldn't kill her; couldn't do that to Varric. Couldn't do that to herself.

 _Please, Merrill_ , she begged silently.  _Please understand_.

Merrill's eyes were bulging and she backed away from Hal, stumbling over a limb and sinking down to the moist ground with her back against a tree trunk. Hal gave her space, settled herself on a boulder across the trail, trying not to seem too predatory with the way she was staring, waiting, willing. "How--" the First stuttered in shock. "How do you even... _think_ like...like this? How...?"

"The Dalish think only of the present and the immediate future," Hal agreed gently. "Dinner tonight, enough food for winter, where we'll be next season. The Dalish world is so small and simple. We've forgotten how to think as the Elvhen did. In centuries, in lifetimes, in ages. I'm a hunter, Merrill. I used to think only of the chase and the kill and making sure we didn't starve. Which way the druffalo would migrate. If it was safe to hunt when the sky was violent. If we could afford to wait." She shook her head, breathed slowly in and out, tried not to think about what had happened to the girl she was, to the simple Dalish elf who set off across Thedas on her own to bring back news of the Conclave. That girl no longer existed. "I had to learn. I had to think not in terms of only the clan, but in terms of all the clans, of the people in my charge, of the soldiers bearing my emblem, of the tensions from the nobles when faced with refugees from three nations over who were displaced by the rifts that I had not yet closed in a corner of the world I didn't even really know existed two months before. I learned. Quickly. And now that I can see all of Thedas for generations into the future, I know that The People will continue to suffer. We face a slow, painful, bloody extinction. And I can't let The People go through that. I can't. I won't."

At some point during the increasing fierceness of Hal's explanations, Merrill finally gained enough composure to look up, to watch this strange barefaced Dalish girl speak grandly, passionately,  _hopefully_ , about The People. About the future. There was a hard fire in her teal eyes that made promises, swore vows, that spoke of selfless sacrifice in the name of Elvhenan. The horror slipped away, leaving Merrill marveling. "It's a shame you weren't born a mage, my friend," she whispered, as though this was a dream that might twist away at any moment, "you would have been a grand Keeper."

Hal let out a hard scoff, a hint of cynicism and bitterness to her tone. "It's a shame the Dalish think only mages can be Keepers." But she waved a hand, clearing the idea from the air around them. "I apologize, that was--" 

Something crashed in the cave ahead, the cave that held one of Skyhold's most prized possessions. Both women were on their feet in seconds, weapons drawn, bodies tense. Waiting for the inevitable attack.

It came in the form of an elven child: filthy, skin and bone, barely ambulatory. He was so young, only seven or eight, his dirty face streaked clean where his tears had fallen, his chin-length, curly hair matted with mud and possibly something more sinister. He stumbled out of the cave as fast as his trembling legs would carry him, arms out, chin dimpled, and went to his knees before them. 

" _Please_ ," he wailed, his words barely intelligible through his sobs, " _please_ don't hurt us! Please h-help! My-- my sister! She won't-- she won't wake! She won't wake up!"


	7. Chapter 7

It could very well have been a trap. There were no villages up here in the mountains, no reason whatsoever for two children to be this far up the peak by themselves, much less for them to have been hiding in a remote cave the Inquisition had fitted for the Eluvian. It was entirely possible -- maybe even likely -- that they were running headfirst into an ambush. But no one knew the Inquisitor was headed out there today. They hadn't said a word to anyone. And _if_  someone were trying to capture her or kill her, why wouldn't they just wait until she wandered into the cave unsuspecting? But of course, these were the thoughts Hal would have later when she realized how reckless they had been. Now, she was sprinting ahead of Merrill and the child, daggers sheathed on her back, searching the darkened cave for signs of the boy's sister. She didn't have to go far.

The Eluvian was much further back, hidden behind one of Fen'Harel's barriers. It repelled the eye and confused the mind unless you knew the way. The children had made camp just beyond where the wind would have whipped into the cave during the night, barely sheltered from the cruel mountain weather at all. They had a pitifully paltry amount: two small packs that were holding together by threads, the dying embers of a fire that must have been built on wet wood and sheer determination, a Dalish bow and quiver with precisely three arrows remaining, and one battered, damp, moldy cloak. It was under this sodden make-shift blanket that Hal found the sister, and if she hadn't gone immediately into crisis mode, she might have taken the time to sob in horror. Perhaps she could do that later.

The girl must have been eleven or twelve, but small even by Dalish standards; the signs of long term malnutrition were obvious. Hal knew them well because she had lived them herself, knew intimately the practice of drinking water or chewing bark to try to distract from the excruciating cramping in her stomach, knew what it was to watch the elders debating in hushed voices whether they should kill the halla that pulled their aravel to feed their dying babies, the ravenous disgust of ripping into juicy, perfect meat that had once been her favorite, sweetest pet. Hal had been a starving runt even before coming to Lavellan. She was smaller, paler than her adopted clan. Clan Lavellan had been hardy stock, brassy-skinned and brawny as elves went, but she had always been lithe and practically translucent. They had made fun of her when they tanned and she freckled and burned, had teased her when she had been the last of her peers to develop hips and breasts. She saw herself so clearly in the unconscious form at her feet.

These children were dark of skin -- perhaps darker than any Dalish elves Hal had ever before encountered -- and their furiously curled hair had become thick, callous nests. There was no meat on either of them, just taut skin over small bones, infected scrapes, the scent of coming death. Falon'Din's perfume, the Dalish sometimes called it. And, as she fell to her knees beside the girl to check her pulse, to listen to her labored breathing, she found the tell-tale signs of a raging fever. Hal lost track of Merrill and the boy, forgot to ask the mage to help with the healing. She was already digging in her pack for a healing potion, lifting the girl's listless head, tilting the vial to her cracked, blue-tinted lips. "Drink," she coaxed insistently, pulling the scrawny, prepubescent body into her lap for better control, "drink, da'len. Come on, asha, come on."

"Here," said Merrill softly, reaching for the girl's forehead. "Let me." She was already weaving the familiar Keeper magic, examining her too-hot form, concentrating fiercely on finding what must be done, on doing what she could out here in the woods. When the bottle of tonic was emptied, Hal carefully shifted the girl into Merrill's arms. Somewhere in all the fuss, the little boy had positioned himself directly behind her shoulder and now he tugged at her coat urgently, his dark brown eyes round and disproportionately large in his gaunt face. "Is...is she dead?"

"No," Hal promised immediately, and without thinking, she gathered the boy into her arms, pulled him into her now-vacant lap. "She's very sick, but we're going to do everything we can, okay?" She searched her pack again, this time to pull out half a loaf of bread. The little boy practically choked, he gasped so hard. "Eat, da'len. But  _slowly_!" To make sure he didn't try to shove it entirely into his mouth all at once, she ripped off little pieces and gave them to him a few nibbles at a time, forcing him to stop and breathe between devouring whatever she handed over. 

"Ma serannas, hahren," he whispered, his cheeks still wet, and she used her sleeve to wipe the film of dirt from his face. He swallowed his most recent hunk of bread and watched Merrill work with anxious fascination. "Is she Dalish?" he asked Hal.

"We both are," she replied soothingly. "My name is Hal'lasean and this is Merrill. We left our clans in the Free Marches." She let him finish another piece of food before she probed hopefully, "And you? What's your name, little one? Where is your clan?"

"My name is Alarel," replied the boy, and when Merrill's ministrations with the girl grew more harried, Hal carefully turned him away from his sister and tried to keep his attention on her. "My...my sister is Mavra. We..." His eyes spilled hot tears again. "We don't have a clan anymore. We lived on the 'Xalted Plains, but...I-- I do magic and there wasn't...there wasn't room, but nobody...nobody else needed..." Suddenly his face was full of hope. "Does she need a First? I...I could be a good First, you'll see! Or a Second! I learn so fast and I listen real good and Mavra, she's a good hunter!"

Hal snuck a peak over her shoulder at Merrill and Mavra, but the Sabrae girl was still hard at work. If she was listening to what was being said, she made no sign of it. Hal's chest was tight with rage and horror, but she forced a smile for Alarel. "There are no clans up here, da'len. Why are you so high in the mountains?"

"Mavra...Mavra, she heard rumors in the Plains. That the Inquisition might...might take us in. People, they're saying the Inquisitor is Dalish! They say she...she stands ten foot tall and glows green like an emerald! The shems, they...they say she can kill just with a smile, but the elves, even the flat ears, they say she keeps a place for elves, any elves at all that might...might reach the Inquisition, so Mavra said...she said if we couldn't find a clan, maybe...we could be soldiers or..."

The Inquisitor's breath shuddered out hard as she struggled to maintain her composure. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips to Alarel's dirty forehead. He, unlike his sister, was frighteningly cold. She tightened her arms around him. "Alarel," she murmured, "your sister is very smart. The Inquisitor lives not far from here in a place called Skyhold. In fact, I know her well. Would you like to meet her? She has healers to help your sister and more food than you could possibly imagine and warm fires and hot baths and clean clothes and soft beds. Would you like that?"

Alarel gawped openly and Hal's eyes welled at the intensity of his childish joy. "Oh, yes, please, hahren! We have been walking for so, so long! And it has been getting colder and colder!"

"You don't need to worry anymore, da'len," Hal swore earnestly, cupping Alarel's cheek in her palm. "The Inquisition will be your home now. We'll be your clan." She peered behind them again at Merrill, whose actions had slowed. She was still tending to Mavra, but the urgency was less now. "Merrill? How is she?"

"Not well," Merrill sighed without looking up. "There's an infection in her blood from a wound on her back. She will need more help than I can give her in this cave."

Hal frowned at the frail girl in Merrill's arms, at the tiny boy in her own, at their own slender adult frames. She could go for help, bring back soldiers and healers and have them carted to Skyhold. They could try to carry them, but it might take too long and be too exposed. No, there was only one surefire way to get them to keep quickly. She would have to remember to thank Fen'Harel profusely for his magic later. "Take Alarel," she commanded. "I'll carry Mavra." She took a breath and encouraged the boy to slide from her lap, tucking her things away in her pack and slinging it over a shoulder. "We'll cut through the Fade."

"We'll do what?" Merrill asked in confusion even as she helped Hal take hold of Mavra's limp form and regain her feet. Merrill gathered her things and reached for Alarel's hand.

"It's a thing I do," and Hal shrugged. There wasn't time to explain it now. "We're going to cut physically through the Fade. Distance is different there; we can will ourselves as close to Skyhold as possible and step back through. It's the fastest way." She glanced down with concern at the young girl in her arms and tucked her more closely to her chest. "Don't let Alarel out of your sight."

Before Merrill could fully process what the Inquisitor had just said, Hal pointed her anchored hand at the cave entrance, turned it with quiet finesse into a door through the Veil, and stepped through. When she stood in the Fade, she turned back to Merrill with her brows lifted. "Come on!"

"You're going to explain this later!" Merrill cried in alarm. She took a deep breath, tightened her hold on the boy, and pushed both of them into the Fade.


	8. Chapter 8

They made it back to Skyhold without incident and just as speedily and easily as Hal had hoped. At least until they stepped through the Veil into the courtyard and nearly got themselves killed when the soldiers practicing under Cullen's second in command surrounded them immediately with weapons drawn. But just as quickly as they were on the elves, the soldiers were backing off, apologizing, and then the lieutenant was shouting orders to get the healers, to alert the inner circle, and Hal didn't have to do anything. The Inquisition was a well-oiled machine at this point; she made the big decisions, but only very rarely was required for the smaller ones. It was a blessing. Soon enough, healers and surgeons arrived to cart off both children, and while Merrill broke away once there was nothing more she could do, Hal trailed after them needfully. Even when Alarel was fed and bathed and tucked into a sick bed next to his sister, who had been sponged clean and was still being fussed over, even when it was all done and the only thing Hal could do was wait...she still paced outside the door to the infirmary, one hand pressed against her chest to try to calm the rapid racing of her heart, the other resting against her neck in the hopes of reminding herself to breathe. Neither thing happened. Her whole body was panicked, shaking, on edge. There was nothing she could do. Nothing more she could do. She had brought them here, seen to them, they were fine, they were  _fine_ , so why was she still so terrified? It didn't make any sense. Maybe it was because she was pregnant. Was this a thing that happened to pregnant women? She wanted for the first time in a dozen years for a mother she might ask these kinds of questions. Who else did she have? Who else here that she could trust had had a child?

"Hal'lasean?" Hal whirled around in surprise to find herself facing Josephine, and she let out a sigh mixed with relief that she wasn't in danger and irritation that she thought she might be in danger. This was Skyhold! She was  _fine_! Josie's expression spoke of her genteel concern, and she reached out to tuck a lock of silver hair behind her Inquisitor's pointed ear. "I heard about what happened. Are the children...?"

"Fine," breathed Hal, her voice strained with withheld tears and agitation at the fact that she was having to withhold tears. "They're fine. The healers say they're just waiting on the girl's fever to break, but that we got her here just in time. They'll have to watch her through the afternoon and into the night, but they're...they're optimistic. The little boy is fed and asleep. They're fine. Everyone's fine."

Josie's delicate, well-manicured brows lifted skeptically. "You don't seem fine."

"I'm just..." Hal shook her head and forced a deep breath, more to show the Ambassador just how fine she was rather than to actually breathe. "Wound up. I thought...maybe..." She glanced around to make sure no one else was within eavesdropping distance and even then leaned a little closer. "Hormones? You're...you're the oldest in your family. Do you remember your mother having...?"

"Panic attacks?" Josephine finished for her and Hal made a face at the idea that she was having anything resembling panic, much less an attack of it.

"That's ridiculous," laughed Hal. "I've fought twisted darkspawn archdemon magister gods and more high dragons than I can count on one hand. I've gone forward to terrible futures and...and I can no longer count how many times I've almost died. Why in the world would  _this_ give me a panic attack? Everyone's fine!" Except Hal. Except her pounding heart and her screaming lungs.

Josephine smirked, but it was a kind expression, born of familiarity and fondness. "I am honestly surprised it hasn't happened sooner.  _I_ had more than a few myself during that Corypheus business. Are you telling me you never once had nightmares?"

Hal's brow knitted as she considered Josie, considered the myriad nightmares she'd had since leaving her clan. "Of course I have nightmares. I constantly have nightmares! But that's not the same. In the wake of the actual events, I was never...like this. I was calm, I was..." She sucked in a breath because she couldn't keep speaking without one and let it out shakily. "And then if I have nightmares, if I can't sleep after or my heart is racing and I can't breathe, well, that's from the nightmares, that's from my worst fears, but this...what even is this? We saved two children. We've given them a home. They're safe and they'll be well soon.  _Why_ would that upset me? It has...it  _has_ to be the baby, doesn't it? Maybe some sort of maternal instinct?"

"I suppose that could be true," Josie admitted, but she didn't seem to particularly believe it. "I'm afraid I cannot compare it to my mother's pregnancies because...well, she was very sheltered. There were not surprises like this for her." She smiled, but it was compassionate and sympathetic, comforting rather than pleased. "To be quite honest, I myself did not experience much in the way of surprises -- much less matters of life or death -- until Orlais, and even then, The Game is much different than all of this. It is very removed from the true struggle for survival." She squeezed Hal's upper arm. "Perhaps you saw your people hurting in those children. Perhaps that is why you are upset."

"My people," scoffed Hal, and suddenly she was scrubbing her face rigorously with her hands like maybe there was vallaslin still there that she could remove by pure friction. "Do you know what  _my people_ did to those children?!" Josie shook her head. "The same thing they did to Minaeve! Because somehow we went from an entire civilization of mages to only allowing three of them at any given time! More than that, even if they're  _children_ , and they're handed off to someone else. If they're lucky. Or, if they're like these two, they wander off into the wilderness and maybe,  _maybe_ find someone willing to take them in! _My people_!" Her eyes moistened and her throat caught. "He was right! Solas was right from the very beginning. And now..." Hal's eyes sparked suddenly and she reached out with both hands to grip Josie's shoulders. "Josie! Josie, I need you to do something for me. I need word sent to every Keeper, every clan, every alienage, every...no, let's send it to everyone! Humans, the Qun, the elves! Post it with Leliana's edicts closing the Circles. Tell everyone that if they have a child with magical abilities and they don't know what to do, they're afraid to keep them, they have archaic, stupid rules about only having three mages at once, whatever the reason...they can drop that child off at an Inquisition base and we'll bring them all here. We'll bring them all to Skyhold."

"Let's take a moment to consider this reasonably," Josie cried, holding up her hands. She was alarmed, stressed, overwhelmed, but laughing. Hal's sudden enthusiasm, the intensity of her need to help the outcasts was catching, but the Ambassador still had logistics to work out. Logistics that, now that Hal was thinking about it, probably didn't allow for an endless supply of child mages showing up in the keep. "Where would we even keep all these children, Hal'lasean? We cannot take in every stray in Thedas, no matter how much we may wish to do so."

"Then we'll build!" insisted Hal, her brows climbing her forehead with her excitement. "We'll start early on that refugee town! We'll rebuild Haven! We'll start a  _school_! Not a college, but a school! For the children! We'll teach them to control themselves, to use their magic properly and well! We have Dorian and Fiona and any number of other mages to help. We might convince Merrill to teach! We'll combine it with the elven college we discussed. We'll raise them there! Give them a home and a future and  _hope_ , Josie! And then send them out as adults into the world to help others and live their lives! And if some want to stay, we'll have a steady supply of mages for the Inquisition."

Hal could see that the Ambassador was folding, but she was still reluctant to say yes or even maybe. Josie tilted her head first one way and then the other as she mulled the prospect over. "If we begin collecting child mages from all over Thedas, the nations will grow paranoid. They'll accuse us of building an army of children."

"Then we'll let it be transparent. Any guardians who release their children to us will have full visitation rights and free contact. They can remove their children from our care at any time." Hal was beaming now. "And we can speak to Leliana and I know she'll give us Chantry support. If they approve, if they call it an act of charity, they'll grumble about it behind closed doors, but no one will dare stand against the Divine. And it will help Leliana deal with the detractors within the clergy who can't abide by her edicts closing the Circles."

Josie gave a helpless laugh and pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. She shook her head, studied her elven Inquisitor, and let out a long, resigned breath. "Very well. I will make inquiries and we can discuss it further at the advisors meeting tonight." She narrowed her eyes at Hal even as she smiled broadly. "I think I liked you better when you were overwhelmed and desperate for advice."

Hal grinned rakishly. "Liar. You love my bravado. It drives you absolutely wild."

The Ambassador laughed and rolled her eyes. "You've been spending too much time with Dorian." She glanced behind them at the stairs leading back up to the main hall and allowed the Inquisitor a thoughtful, caring smile. "I suppose I must get to work on this school of yours.  _Try_ not to come up with any more brilliant ideas in the meantime, won't you, Inquisitor?"

"I make no promises!" Josie turned to go, but Hal caught her arm, suddenly sincere and vulnerable. "Josie. Thank you. For talking to me."

Josie smiled sweetly in return. "You would do the same for me."


	9. Chapter 9

The rest of the day was strange in how very ordinary it was. She needed a distraction, some way to keep her mind off her own anxiety, but there was nothing to be found. Hal had thought to ask Merrill if she'd like to return to the Eluvian in the afternoon, but just the idea of that cave, those starving children, the little boy's fear was enough to give her palpitations all over again. So instead she holed up in the rotunda, curled in the chair that still smelled like Fen'Harel, surrounded by his art, by the sound of quiet study in the library, and conducted all her business from there. She wrote a lengthy letter full of veiled references to Leliana, a follow-up to one she'd sent with Fen'Harel in person when he'd first left her a month before. He had delivered it to her with the truth about his identity and in that way Hal had laid out her plans and requested her friend's Divine help. That task sufficed for a time, but soon there was nothing left but signatures and seals. When not even being enveloped by her love's things could soothe her frayed nerves, she gave up and spent the rest of the evening in the infirmary. The children were both asleep and well tended, but she stayed and watched over them regardless, and though the healers and surgeons were clearly a little agitated by her presence, she paid them no heed. She was the blighted Inquisitor after all, and this was  _her_ infirmary. She could make a nuisance of herself in it if she so pleased! Besides, being near the children, seeing they were safe and breathing and cared for was about the only thing she could find that didn't leave her pulse racing and her breath short. Eventually Cole joined her vigil too, and that helped.

She stayed with them until the advisors meeting and then dinner, where Dorian talked her into playing a round of Wicked Grace with their visitors. He assured her that Varric assured him that Fenris would not be joining. So she'd gone with him to the tavern where the others enjoyed getting drunk and she enjoyed the excellent company of the Hawke sisters, Merrill, Varric, Cassandra, Bull, Krem, Cole, Josie, and even Sera. At least until Sera started harassing Hal about her refraining from alcohol and bullying Merrill about her "elfiness". It was dark outside but still relatively early when Hal excused herself and took her winnings as far away from the blonde elf as possible. She checked in on the children who were still fast asleep and then wandered uselessly around Skyhold, aching for Cullen's steady support and willingness to listen or for the safety and comfort of Fen'Harel's arms. But she had sent both men away, albeit temporarily, and so she found herself alone with this coiled knot of tension inside her ribs. Hal haunted the halls, traced her hands along the rotunda murals, ran fingers over the bindings of books that she hadn't read in the hopes of finding something that might appeal to her. She continued up the stairs to the rookery, where she fed the ravens a little extra corn and petted their feathers and imagined that Leliana might be doing right that very moment. Now that the redhead was Divine Victoria, they had more in common than they ever had before, but they were also too far apart and too suspicious of messengers and mail to keep honest correspondence.

When nothing in the library tower offered anything she sought, she pulled her coat more tightly around her and opened the door to the battlements for some much needed perspective. The stars above, the chill wind, the view of the mountain range, they had always helped her before, even when Fen'Harel had vanished without a trace. They hadn't helped  _much_ , but they had helped. But when she stepped out onto the high stone walkway, Hal didn't find herself alone at the top of the world as she had hoped. He didn't look back at the sound of the door, nor at her footsteps. He was hunched over the parapet, his forearms folded and resting on the masonry to hold himself up, his green-eyed gaze searching the horizon.

"Fenris," Hal murmured, so that he would know she was there. "I didn't think anyone else was here." Her brow knit then and despite her desire to give him his privacy and her knowledge of his thorny personality, her natural curiosity got the better of her. She found herself leaning against the wall next to him, mimicking his posture, but looking to him instead of the mountains. "You don't enjoy Wicked Grace?"

The tattooed elf glanced down at the woman beside him, studying her thoughtfully for a moment before turning his attention back to the sky. "Inquisitor," he greeted with neutrality. Which, she supposed, was better than immediate disrespect. "I am not always in the mood for company." And though he said it pointedly, it was not so directed that Hal felt she had to leave right that moment.

"We have that in common then," she replied, and turned her eyes to the stars as a gesture of good will. She would give him space, should he allow her to stay. "I can leave, if you need to be alone." It was light, unassuming. It said she had no desire to go, but that she was a gracious host.

Fenris considered her again, lifting one brow, and she let him do so without her eyes on him. She allowed him to study her profile, was aware of the trailing of his eyes down her body and back up before he returned to his original position. "That isn't necessary," he decided. And then, oh-so-casually, "Who's the father? I know it isn't your Tevene pet. You're not his type."

Hal's entire being stiffened. Her eyes went wide and round, her mouth hung slack, and by the time she was looking at Fenris again -- who was now consciously letting her study his profile -- her entire face was beet red from neckline to ear tips. He didn't smirk, but there was a pleased light in his eyes. "H-how...?!"

"There is no shortage of pregnant elven slaves in Tevinter," explained Fenris without feeling. As though he were speaking about the weather in Minrathous. But then his face darkened and his voice grew even deeper. "Their masters dally as it suits them and then throw the women and the babies away the moment they become inconvenient." He let that sit heavily between them for a moment before he finally deigned to fit her with the slightest of dry smirks. "The signs are all there, if you know where to look. The morning sickness, the ripe red at the points of your ears. Perhaps the humans don't know any better, but I imagine you and I are both aware there's no such thing as a plump elf."

She'd been blushing furiously, her fingers tracing her ears, but at his last words, Hal was suddenly indignant. She stood from the wall and held herself to her full height, which was, unfortunately, still not actually tall enough to really see eye-to-eye with Fenris. "I am not  _plump_!" she snapped.

He finally released the full force of his smug smile. "No. You're pregnant." Hal let out a disgusted huff and turned sharply to the parapet again, crossing her arms self-consciously over her stomach and scowling out at the sky. "You needn't worry. I have no intention of telling anyone."

Hal's lip curled skeptically. "I know you're involved with Hawke. You don't plan on telling her?"

"There'd be no point," Fenris admitted with the kind of subtle amusement Hal had come to expect and to love from Fen'Harel. Maybe it was a wolf thing. "She already knows." The Inquisitor let out a groan and buried her face in her palms, her elbows holding her up on the stone wall. Fenris let out a gravelly chuckle.

"Is it that obvious?" she asked, her words muffled by her hands. "I thought I had more time."

After a moment's consideration, the other elf said simply, "No." He hesitated and added, "Merrill noticed or I would not have. Something about Keepers needing to know when their women are with child so they can make decisions about travel."

 _Of course_ , Hal realized irritably,  _of course a First would have seen it._

"Merrill also mentioned some interesting information about the tattoos the Dalish wear," Fenris continued, and now despite the fact that his voice was carefully casual, there was tension in it. He was leading up to something, and Hal had a pretty good idea of what it was. "That they were slave markings, which is why you had yours removed. She said you intend to move against Tevinter. You intend to move all of Thedas against Tevinter." _  
_

Hal took a few steadying breaths, deeper now than they had been all day because she was finally not thinking about the starving children. At least not the ones in the infirmary. She was thinking about the starving children of Tevinter now. "I intend to move all of Thedas against the Magisterium," she correct softly, searching the battlements for prying ears. "And when the magisters are preoccupied with outside forces, I intend to take Tevinter down from the inside."

Fenris' eyes flashed in sudden understanding. "Your Tevene pet," he murmured, and now he was looking for eavesdroppers as well. But they were alone. 

"Mm," she agreed, "and others already in place there." She sucked in a breath. "And the common folk and the slaves."

This time Fenris' smirk was cold and vicious. "That's where I come in."

Hal gave the barest of nods. "I have conditions for the revolt. Moral, ethical considerations. If you don't care to meet them, we can find someone else. But Varric speaks highly of you. I'd rather not have to keep looking." She glanced sideways at the white-haired man beside her, weighing him and his non-reaction with keen eyes. "But we can discuss details later." Hal smiled then, warm and amiable as though she could see right through the former slave to the man beneath. Because he was so much like her Wolf in all the ways that meant she knew how to read him. "Varric warned me repeatedly that I wouldn't be able to get two words out of you. I'm glad you've decided to prove him wrong."

Fenris' upper lip twisted with distaste. "I speak when I have something to say." They lapsed into silence for a while, watching the stars, bracing against the wind, and then the man was casting a sly look to the side at the pale, unmarked face of the elven Inquisitor. "Do you not enjoy Wicked Grace?"

Hal smiled again, crooked and wan, and gave a hapless shrug. "I do. But Merrill and I found these...starving, barely alive Dalish children in the woods today, and I..." She shook her head, a tiny, useless gesture. "I can't shake it. I don't know why. They're fine, they're going to be fine, but something about it..." She scrubbed a hand over her face. "I feel like there's something I  _should_ know, that there's something I'm missing, like someone's taken the center pieces out of a puzzle, and that if I could just  _remember_ what it was, I would understand why I'm so..." Hal let out a hard sigh and flashed a self-deprecating half-smirk at Fenris. "Sorry. I'm not normally this forthcoming with people I don't actually know."

It was only then that Hal noticed how still and sullen Fenris had become, how his brow pulled low over his eyes as he stared out at the front towers and the forest and stars beyond them. "No," he said again, and after several long moments, he confessed, "I know just what you mean. It can be..." He searched irritably for the right word. "...maddening."

The Inquisitor frowned pensively as she appraised the man beside her one last time. "It's also terrifying," she added gently, and he jerked his gaze to hers in surprise. She smiled again, sweetly this time, and pushed away from the wall. "I'm going to try to get some sleep. Think about what I've said. If you're interested, we can talk details tomorrow."

"Inquisitor," said Fenris, and Hal paused where she stood, halfway turned for the door to the rookery, her brows lifted in question. "You never did say who the father is."

Hal's cheeks went pink and it took her a moment to make eye contact. Teal eyes met green and she offered a lopsided smile. "He's called Solas. You'd like him, I think."


	10. Chapter 10

_She is starving. This is not the kind of starving she used to complain about in camp when stew was bubbling on the fire and she had been running and playing her breakfast away for hours. This is a kind she has come to know only in the past few months. It claws at her stomach like a fox is trying to scrabble its way out of her skin. She has sores on the corners of her lips and she can't stop touching them with her tongue, no matter how much it hurts. No matter how many times her mother pops her on the wrist and tells her not to do it. The pain on her mouth is a good way to pretend she's not hungry. Her father makes poultices for her wounds but she licks them off. He makes thick pastes out of herbs and bark and boiled water for her to chew but they don't help anymore. She asks repeatedly if she ate and doesn't remember because her belly is swollen like she maybe had a feast, but when she mentions it, her mother cries and her sister Lanaya has to take her a little ways away to play until Babae calms Mamae down. Lanaya's belly isn't big though. She and Babae are thin thin thin, like the reeds that grow on the banks of the river they've been following forever now. Only she and Mamae have big bellies, but Mamae has a baby in hers. When she asks if maybe she has a baby too, they tell her it's not possible, they tell her to hush. They make Lanaya take her off to play._

_She is too tired to play now. She is tired and hungry and her feet hurt and her stomach hurts and her mouth hurts and her skin is red and painful, but she has learned to stop saying these things out loud because it makes Mamae cry. Babae makes that face, that forehead wrinkling face where he presses his lips together and can't look at any of them. Babae is not a hunter. He is a crafter. He wears the vallaslin of June. Mamae is the hunter, she wears Andruil's mark, but she's been too sick to hunt. She teaches the girls to make and set snares and sometimes there is a rabbit or a squirrel or a fox and they make it last for days. Babae made them fishing poles and nets and so sometimes they have fish. But food is scarce._

_Each time they find a clan, they ask if they have room for a mage. Lanaya is talented, they say, and Babae is a master with iron bark. But each time the clans say no. Move along. They always give a few fresh supplies, but mostly they say they can't spare much. The drought, they say, or this war or that war, or the shems. Always the shems. So Mamae asks where the next clan might be and they try again. But this time the clan isn't where they were told. The clan has moved on. They have picked the land clean of what little it held and now they walk in the wake of the aravels, too many days behind, too slow and too weary to catch up. There has been no game in two weeks. It has started to get cold at night, so this evening as the sky grows dark, they curl up together, Babae and Lanaya and the little girl and Mamae. They hold each other and shiver under the blankets and Babae points out constellations and asks Lanaya to name them._

_"June," Lanaya says dutifully. Babae smiles at her and points to the next. "Andruil." And the next. "...Elgar'nan? No, Dirthamen." But the next one Lanaya doesn't know, can't remember, but she does, oh, she does!_

_"Fen'Harel!" she exclaims a little too loudly and Babae laughs. "The Betrayer!"_

_"Very good, da'ean!"_

_She beams at him and reaches a hand beyond the furs that warm them to point at the stars that comprise the trickster god. "That's his--" But she falls suddenly silent and stares curiously at her arm as thick red liquid, warm and sharp smelling slides down her fingers to her palm and then down her wrist. There is so much of it. Where did it come from? "Bae?" she asks uncertainly, and that's when everything gets scary._

_Babae is on his feet immediately, his skin even paler than usual as he leaps over his daughters and throws the blanket from Mamae, who is asleep and also so, so white. Whiter than anyone the girl has ever seen. But between Mamae's legs, seeping out onto the ground and the pallet and all over the girl's breeches is that liquid, so much of that liquid, and suddenly she understands that it's blood. "Mamae?" she squeaks, and she shakes her mother's shoulder. "Wake up, Mae, you're bleeding! Mamae, wake up! Wake up!_ Mamae _!"_

 _"_ Tamalin _!" barks her father, who is always quiet, always calm, slow and steady and strong like his hands when he works leather and metal and stone into art, into the things that make up Dalish life. He shouts at her and she falls back in shock. "For once in your life, da'len, be_ silent _!" Her eyes round and fill with tears but she will be good, she will be silent for once in her life because Babae is scary like this, scary like the stories Lanaya tells her about the Dread Wolf, scary like getting too close to the shems.  She will be silent and good because she has upset Babae and he's crying now over Mamae's pale pale legs, pale but for the dark red of the blood like cutting the throats of the game they catch in their traps and because they always thank Andruil for the kill, she prays in her head, thanking the Huntress for the blood leaking from Mamae's edhas. Her mouth waters and her stomach cramps and she wonders if this means they'll finally get to eat._

 _She sits in silence at the edge of the pallet, soaked in her mother's blood, and prays for food and thanks Andruil and watches Lanaya and Babae scrambling with whatever animal is trapped in Mamae's snare, in the snare Tamalin is sure must be up there with the baby. Babae shouts orders at Lanaya and she races to start a fire, to gather water from the stream, to set it to boil, to bring Babae a clean shirt that he uses like a towel, to find their last healing potion in his pack and try to make Mamae drink it. Tamalin watches all of this with violet-touched-teal eyes overlarge in her gaunt face, but when the bleeding finally stops, when Babae collapses weeping on Mamae's swollen tummy, calling her name over and over, when Lanaya stands a few feet away in a stillness that is almost too still with blood up to her elbows, with blood all over the front of her tunic, when the chaos is over, there is no food. There is nothing to eat, so Andruil must not have accepted her prayers. And Mamae will not wake. And Babae won't leave Mamae. Not even the next day or the next. Not even when Lanaya begs him, sobbing, please, Babae, we must go. Babae,_ please _! Not even when Mamae starts to smell of Falon'Din's perfume. Not even when the night forest starts to fill with yips and growls and only the fire Lanaya stokes through the dark hours keeps the scavenging beasts at bay. The next morning, Lanaya tries to pull Babae from Mamae's body, screams and kicks and spits at him. Curses him, hopes the Dread Wolf comes for their mother's rotting meat next._

_Then she takes Tamalin by the hand and shoulders a pack filled with all the best parts of Mamae and Babae's things, a pack that is too big for her. A pack that makes Lanaya hunch over. But Lanaya doesn't complain. She says Babae wants her to take Tamalin away to play for a while. But the little girl is clever. She knows they're leaving Babae behind._

_They walk and walk for ages, but they have to stop and rest all the time. They get dizzy and Tamalin lies down to take a nap, but Lanaya screams at her that sleeping is not allowed, that the Dread Wolf is on their scent and they have to go, go right then, get_ up _, Tamalin! Her feet don't work like they should, she keeps tripping and falling and Lanaya grabs her hard by the arm and drags her to her feet, drags her forward, and she wants to scream and cry but Babae said to be silent, so she goes where Lanaya makes her and doesn't stop until Lanaya stops that evening. There is a fire in the distance and the sound of voices, so Lanaya finds a little circle of bushes and tucks Tamalin inside them._

_"If you move or make a sound," her sister warns her fiercely, "the Dread Wolf will find you and eat you! You stay right here and you stay quiet! I'll be back in a minute."_

_Lanaya walks away and Tamalin stays put, doesn't move, doesn't so much as sniffle, and keeps alert for six big red eyes and sharp slavering teeth. The Dread Wolf doesn't find her. She sits and sits and sits and the stars come out and she names them in her head until finally, finally, Lanaya comes back. Lanaya is crying and puts down her pack where Tamalin has been hiding._

_"Come on, da'ean," says Lanaya like Babae always does, and Tamalin makes her tired little legs follow blindly. Her sister takes her to a clearing where rests a herd of halla and turns her around so they're facing each other. Lanaya's hair is silver like hers in the moonlight, her eyes turquoise just like Tamalin's. "Ar lath ma, Tamalin," Lanaya sobs, and Tamalin hugs her because she's sad and because she can't say it back. She is being silent for Babae. "They don't need a mage here either. I saw a Keeper and a First and a healer. But you can stay. You should stay. So you sleep here tonight, okay, little sister? You sleep here with the halla so they'll find you in the morning. And you be good, Tama, you do always what you're told so they won't send you away. And I'll see you again one day."_

_The little girl's face contorts but she doesn't cry. Crying makes sounds and she is silent. She stands in the halla pen and watches Lanaya disappear into the woods, sometimes looking back, but mostly moving away. But it's cold tonight and Tamalin eventually finds a new mother halla and drinks greedily from her teet until the calf complains. And then, full for the first time in months, the little girl curls up with the halla and falls asleep._


	11. Chapter 11

Merrill was no expert in the Fade. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But she was passable as any First must be, so while it took her some drunken trying to locate Hal'lasean's dream, she did eventually find it. But then she stood uncertain outside the membrane that protected it, frowning as she tried to decide how to proceed. She had been invited into the dream, so should she just go in? Could she...knock? Was there a door somewhere? The whole thing was foreign to her. She'd only done something like this once before when she and Hawke had gone in to Feynriel's dream to find and rescue him and that had gone...very poorly for her. But that was years ago and she was stronger now, more sure of herself, and Hal'lasean wasn't being held captive by a demon, so this should be perfectly safe. Right? Merrill hesitated so long that she was still outside the Inquisitor's dream when what was a cheerful, sun-warmed meadow from the Free Marches turned dark, swirled ominously. Something crackled over the bubble of the dream, green and powerful, a barrier? Perhaps her Fadewalker had warded her to protect her. She was not a mage, after all, even if she could do impossible things like opening doors through the Veil and walking physically into the Fade. She would attract demons but have no ability to fight them.

Something pulsed inside Hal'lasean's dream, something hard and furious, and then again and again and again, more drastically each time. The barrier began to crack. Spiderweb lines spread through its energy like shattering glass and Merrill stepped back in alarm, watching horrified as whole chunks of the magic cracked away, fell like ice into the Fade where it dissipated and floated away, leaving gaping wounds in the sheltering membrane. Merrill covered her mouth with her hand and stood transfixed as the dream pulsed again, black, black, black, and then suddenly in vibrant color, impossible color. She recognized the forests of the Marches, but they were massive, the trees much too big and not quite right, with limbs like claws that reached down, grabbed at the little family of four, loomed as they walked and walked and walked together, a father with teal eyes and June's vallaslin, a mother with silver hair and Andruil's marks, her belly huge with the child she carried, and two pretty little girls that looked like both parents, one a serious nine-year-old, the other a bright four. And they were starving. She watched them wander in the sliding time signature of the Fade, trying clan after clan without success, saw them faltering, slowing. Merrill let out a hideous sob as the mother miscarried and wept openly through the dream, ashamed that she couldn't look away but feeling responsible, feeling like she must witness the little family's pain. Because Merrill remembered them. Remembered her father's brother with his June vallaslin and his beautiful hunter wife. She remembered her younger cousins, her playmates, her constant companions in Nevarra where she was born. She remembered the Arlathvhen, where she'd been traded to Sabrae, but where no one could take on little Lanaya, who had just shown magical abilities too. 

Merrill remembered chatty, happy baby Tamalin, bright pretty child, always underfoot, always getting into trouble, always climbing and leaping and laughing. She couldn't believe she'd never seen it in Hal'lasean before now. Couldn't stand that this is what had become of them. Couldn't look away from what just as easily could have been her fate, if only Lanaya had been the elder cousin.

She owed it to her kin to watch the whole, horrible thing. So that is exactly what Merrill did.

"They found her there the next morning," came a soft lilting voice beside her, and she gasped in fright, turning wide, wet eyes to find a worried, pensive looking elf had joined her in her vigil. He was plainly dressed and handsome, but barefaced and bald, and he wore a jaw bone on a necklace low against his chest. "You are Varric's Merrill?"

"H-how...?" But as she sniffled and wiped her eyes, her brain finally caught up. "You're her Fadewalker?"

The label made him smile, warm but wan. "I am called Solas. I felt my wards break. I thought perhaps she was unsafe." He turned back to the dream, now just halla fur and animal smells and the little girl shivering in the cold.

Merrill felt suddenly guilty, as though she had been caught spying, and her cheeks burned. "She...she invited me. She said to find her in the Fade tonight and she would give me proof about..." She must have touched her fingers to her vallaslin because Solas nodded his understanding. "Does she dream of this often?"

The man's cool blue eyes crinkled with sorrow as he shook his head. "Never, to my knowledge. She swore she did not remember anything of her life before Clan Lavellan." Suddenly he was studying Merrill with such intensity that she felt as though he'd pried open her mind and was flipping through it like the pages of a book. She took a small, protective step back. "What happened today? What could have caused this?"

"We found two children," Merrill said with realization. "They were Dalish, a brother and sister. The sister was unconscious with blood fever and the boy was terrified. He was a mage, so they'd been looking for a clan. They heard the Inquisition might take them in, but they only got as far as the Eluvian. She was quite upset, but I thought perhaps it was because of her condition."

This time when Solas appraised her, he seemed more satisfied with what he saw. "You have earned Hal'la's trust quicky," he observed. Merrill felt her cheeks heat at what felt like high praise. And because she just remembered that the Inquisitor had named him Elvhen. She was quite abruptly aware of how young and foolish she must seem to such a being, all at once self-conscious of how he must see her vallaslin. He took a deep breath and frowned seriously at the hole in his wards. "You must do something for her, lethallan." Her breath caught. An immortal elf, if such he was, just called her kin! "You must find and wake Dorian Pavus. Tell him I require him to go be with Hal'la. Tell him to promise her I will be with her in a few hours."

"In the Fade?" she wondered.

"No," sighed Solas. "For this I must return to her in the flesh."

"The Eluvian?!" Merrill gasped, excited by the prospect even after all she'd just seen. 

Solas tilted his head to consider her, something like amusement in his eyes. Or possibly pity. "Yes, da'len. Now do as I ask.  _Wake up._ "


	12. Chapter 12

_"Fenedhis!" yelps the man standing over her with Ghilan'nain's vallaslin. The sun has risen, but only just, and Tamalin blearily opens her eyes to find herself in the shadow of a stranger. But he is Dalish, so she is safe. "Gahon! Gahon, get the Keeper! There's a-- Mythal's left us a little girl! There's a little girl sleeping with the halla!"_

_Tamalin sits up and rubs at her eyes with shaky fists. One of the halla bumps her with its nose but she's too unsure of herself to smile. Mamae is gone. Babae is gone. Lanaya is gone. There is only Tamalin now. Tamalin and the halla and this strange man, who stops yelling and kneels before her with a smile that she can see he doesn't really mean. He's looking at the sores on her mouth and the curve of her belly and the clear outline of bones through her pale skin. He's sad when he looks at her so his smile isn't quite right. He's trying to make her feel better. But Tamalin feels nothing. Just cold and hungry and tired and scared. Nothing else. There is nothing else. Lanaya took it with her when she left._

_"What's your name, da'len?" the man asks. He reaches out to touch her hair and she lets him because whatever's going to happen now, there's no point in fighting it. She's too tired to fight. But she doesn't answer his question because Babae told her to be silent, Lanaya told her not to make a sound, because she seems to have forgotten how to speak anyway, because there is nothing left to say. "Where are your parents, little one?" She just stares at him. She will be silent for Babae._

Hal'lasean woke with her mouth open in a soundless scream. She remembered. She remembered now. Remembered the uncertain fragments of childhood memory, but remembered nonetheless. And with that memory came abject terror. Pure, instinctual animal panic. She was already drenched in sweat, her hair plastered to her head. Her heart hurled itself against her ribs like a frantic hummingbird, her breath caught high in her chest and she couldn't get any air, couldn't make her lungs fill up, couldn't control the way she quaked or the feeling that she was in danger. Complete and mortal danger. She was not safe here in her bed, the bed she had shared with Fen'Harel, the bed in her remote quarters in the high tower of her castle fortress with its guards and soldiers and full of her friends and family. She was not safe. There was no air. She was not safe. She needed air! These walls, this ceiling, all this heavy stone, it was too much, too close, too too too! She had to get out.

Hal wore only a woolen shift, but there was no time to dress or layer. If she didn't get outside, get to the safety and openness of the balcony right that second, she wouldn't make it. She had to get out. She threw open both doors, blasting herself with an icy mountain wind, the scent of snow carried from the North, and then she stumbled out into the frigid night air, curled up on the stone floor with her back to the corner of the railing, wrapped her arms around her knees to make herself as small and invisible as possible. She still couldn't breathe but the cold helped. The cold was grounding. The cold reminded her that she was in Skyhold, not the Free Marches, that she was decades away from that little girl she had forgotten. She sat and she stared wide-eyed into the darkness of her lonely bedroom and she rocked. And she was silent. And she remembered.

She wasn't there long before Cole was curled up beside her. He had removed his hat so he could put his head on her shoulder, but even that was too much and she jerked away, scooted away, needed space, needed to breathe, she couldn't do that: taking care of Cole, taking care of Skyhold, taking care of Thedas! She sucked in a loud, ragged breath and it came out in a throat-tearing sob, not because she gave it voice but because she tried not to. Hal couldn't bring herself to make noise, not on purpose. Cole looked deeply distraught so she buried her face against her knees, wrapped her arms over her head.

And then there were strong arms around her, scooping her up in her tight little ball, then legs beneath her and a broad chest for her to lean against. There was a hand in her hair, petting her, soothing her, and a scent that was mostly Dorian but also booze and Bull and sex. "It's all right," the  mage was murmuring against her hair. "It's okay, Hal. Your big Tevinter lummox has you. Whatever it is, it's all right. Dorian's here now. And in a few hours, your big bad Wolf will be here and neither of us is ever going to let anything happen to you. We'll keep you safe."

She didn't unfurl, couldn't leave herself vulnerable, still couldn't truly breathe, but she calmed a little, just a little, just enough for a sense of relief, and she buried her fists in Dorian's shirt, burrowed her face against his chest, let him hold her close, listened needfully to his steady heart, his working lungs.

"Can't breathe," Cole whispered urgently to Dorian. "Can't breathe, not safe, need to hide, must be quiet, so quiet, but she remembers now, remembers! Remembers Lanaya and Babae and the hunger and the blood, all that blood, she won't wake, she doesn't wake, and he won't leave her but the birds are circling, Falon'Din's birds, circling Mamae, tired, torn, toes bleeding and blackening, Tamalin, Tamalin, not Hal'lasean, Tamalin and Lanaya, Lanaya walking away, leaving her behind, giving her to strangers! Lanaya, where are you! Lanaya, don't go!"

"Cole," hissed Dorian sharply. "You're not bloody helping. You can either shut up or get out!"

"Why did they send them away, Dorian? Why would she leave the little girl?"

"Andraste's tits, Cole!" snapped Dorian. "I don't know what you're going on about, but I swear to the Maker, if you don't leave it be, I will call someone in here and have you thrown out bodily!"

The boy was quiet for some time, but finally he muttered miserably, "She hurts, Dorian. She hurts so much."

Dorian let out a hard sigh. "I know that, Cole. I'm doing the best I can."


	13. Chapter 13

Leave it to Merrill to ruin the completely unheard of event that was Fenris crawling into Hawke's bed two nights in a row. Well, okay, she didn't  _ruin_ it, exactly, because the sweaty, naked, moaning part of their time together had finished hours ago, but he had stayed with her. He had his arms wrapped around her. It was so sweet and unexpected that she'd stayed up despite her drunkenness and exhaustion in an effort to memorize every moment of it. Fenris was  _cuddling_. After  _sex_. _Twice in a row_! Thank the bloody Maker. Hawke was in absolute ecstasy just at the sensation of the man she loved's deep, even breathing against her shoulder. He would have nightmares later -- she knew they were coming -- but for now, just for now, she was warm and held and sated. One day, when she was feeling vulnerable and he seemed receptive, she was going to tell him exactly how much this meant to her. Probably with tears in her eyes. And then punch him, in case he started to think she'd gone soft.

Hawke was just starting to lose the battle against her stupidly happy drowsiness when the door to their suite burst open. Fenris was out of her bed like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, grabbing his breeches and the nearest blade -- her blade, not his, damn him -- and barely covering himself as he prepared for the fight that, in all likelihood, was coming for them. That was their life. That was just how their luck ran. Hawke wasn't far behind him, throwing on his shirt and snatching up her remaining dagger so that they could face their attackers with some little dignity.

But it wasn't assassins or brigands or bandits. It wasn't even revenging slavers. No, it was just sweet, dear Merrill. Who Hawke desperately wanted to murder for this.

" _Merrill_!" shouted Hawke furiously, setting her blade on the nearest table and running back into her bedroom to grab a housecoat. Fenris made a noise of disgust and disappeared into his room, shutting the door behind him. It was painful and frustrating to see him retreat when he had taken such a step forward tonight, but he didn't bother to hide his bare ass as he stalked away, so it wasn't all bad. But  _Merrill_. Hawke turned all her irritability and grumpiness on the Dalish girl, who was blushing bright pink under her tattoos. "You can't just barge in on--"

"I know! Oh, Hawke, I know, and I'm so sorry!" It was Hawke's curse that any time one of her friends looked distraught, all her anger just melted away. Maybe that's why they were always turning on her. They didn't think she'd ever actually bother to get revenge or stop them. Or even do anything about it, so long as they looked upset. And Merrill looked upset. Very, very upset. Her eyes were half her face and clearly red-rimmed from crying. "I just did the same to that Tevinter mage and the Qunari, only, by the Dread Wolf, they were  _not_ sleeping, not at all, and there was this... _hammock_ hooked to the ceiling with this--" Merrill waved a hand in agitation and tried again. "Hawke, what do you do, what do you do when you find out someone is your cousin, when you realize that your father's brother is their father, only they don't know it, they were lost, they didn't even really remember, but now they do, but they still don't know because they were so young and is it cruel or right to tell them you knew their parents and their sister, even if they're dead, even if maybe you're indirectly the reason everything went terribly for them, what do you do, Hawke?!"

Halfway through Merrill's desperate diatribe, Hawke sank into a chair and rubbed at her temples as slowly as possible, like maybe the elf would absorb her careful, deliberate pace and calm down. But of course Merrill wasn't one to notice things, so it just meant that when the Dalish girl stood before her in sudden, needy silence, Hawke had accidentally put herself in a position of authority. But she had none! Well, she had some. But not like Hal. Hawke's people listened or didn't and maybe she could change their minds. But there were no orders given, no chain of command. Part of her was jealous, but mostly the thought of her choices having power over others made her queasy. So it was with still-slightly-drunk exasperation that she held her arms out at her sides to show Merrill she was completely lost. "Merrill, I have  _no idea_ what you're talking about! You just burst into my room in the middle of the night, I'm tired, I'm barely clothed, I'm still probably a little drunk, Fenris was  _cuddling_ , and now you've scared him off and I just don't know what you want from me right now, so slow down and start over!  _Quietly._ "

"There are several words I'd use to describe Merrill," came Fenris' rough voice from his doorway behind her chair. "But 'scary' is not one of them." A moment later she felt his hand on her shoulder and she practically melted against him. "And I was  _not_ cuddling. I do not cuddle."

Hawke looked up to find him pretending to scowl. She smirked back. "That was cuddling."

"O-okay," Merrill began, and Fenris let out a sigh as Hawke turned her attention to the former First. "You...you remember your uncle had that daughter and you found her and reunited them?"

There was no stopping the pointed way Hawke raised one judgmental brow. How could she forget? "Yes, Merrill, I remember."

"Do...do you think that was the right choice?" Merrill asked pleadingly, holding her arms down with her palms out like she was waiting for them to hand her the answer. She seemed to suddenly realize what she had in an audience with Fenris as well because she directed her next imploring question at him. "Or supposing you didn't remember something, a family and your past..." Hawke didn't have to look to know how unamused the ex-slave's expression must be. "But then! But then one night you did! Would you want to find, for instance, a cousin, if maybe that cousin is in some ways possibly but not truly the reason for something terrible that happened?"

" _Merrill_ ," Fenris growled, prickling at the line of thought. "Whatever it is, spit it out!"

The petite Dalish elf flushed and then went pale, paler than usual, and frowned down at her hands as they worried at each other. "It...it turns out...oh, dear. It turns out that it is...very, very likely, certain really, that the Inquisitor's father may be -- no, I'm almost sure he is-- was -- my father's brother?"

Hawke's jaw dropped. She made no effort to hide either her very mixed feelings or her shock. "Maker's breath, Merrill! How sure are you?"

Fenris didn't wait for Merrill to answer before piling on his curiosity as well. "I thought you were from two different clans."

"Well," squeaked Merrill, and now she was looking between them as though she'd done something wrong, her face red with embarrassment or shame. Maybe both. "You see, there are only so many clans and...I'm not originally from Clan Sabrae. They adopted me at an Arlathvhen when I was a girl because the clan of my birth -- a Nevarran clan called Alerion -- already had enough mages. And as it turns out, the Inquisitor wasn't born in Clan Lavellan either. She...she was a foundling. An orphan. But she was so young, you see, and it was so horrible..." Merrill's eyes brimmed with tears. "So she doesn't remember. Didn't remember. Until tonight. And I...watched. I watched her remember it. Her name...her name was Tamalin and she had a sister, Lanaya, and a crafter father with June's vallaslin and a hunter mother with Andruil's. And I...in Nevarra,  _I_ had an uncle, a crafter with June's vallaslin and his wife was a hunter with Andruil's. They had two daughters, you see, my cousins, Lanaya and Tamalin..."

"You're sure they're the same ones you knew?" Hawke wondered and her voice was gentler now, tempered by whatever it was Merrill was feeling. "Are those common names among the Dalish?"

"Lanaya is," the other woman admitted, but she was already shaking her head. "But Tamalin isn't. Tamlen, the male variant, is...well, you remember. But it isn't often used for a girl. Her...my uncle used to call his Tamalin 'little bird' and in the memory, in the dream, she--"

" _In_ the memory?" Fenris clarified with agitated alarm. "You were  _in_ her dream?!"

"N-no!" Merrill assured them, eyes wide. "Well, she invited me but I never-- I didn't-- but I saw it. I saw her dream of it. And I  _recognized_ them! How...how do I tell her I know who she is? Who she truly is?  _Do_ I tell her?!"

" _Yes_!" Fenris barked with such ferocity that both women turned to stare at him. But he didn't care. "It's not who she truly is,  _she_ chooses that! But you owe her the truth. It isn't yours to withhold. You tell her. That's the end of it." He frowned sharply. "Is she awake now? She should know as soon as she is."

"She-- she is. Her Fadewalker, a man called Solas, he told me to send Dorian Pavus to her immediately."

Fenris let out a snort and took a purposeful step for the door. But Hawke stood up quickly at the idea of the three of them barging into the Inquisitor's room in the middle of the night and turned to face her lover, forcing him to make eye contact. "It can wait, Fenris. It can wait until morning. She most likely doesn't want to see anyone for a while. You don't when you remember something."

The white-haired elf glowered almost petulantly, but made no move to go around her. "Fine," he conceded with gravel in his voice. "First thing in the morning."


	14. Chapter 14

Eventually Dorian had gotten too cold to stay outside on the balcony any longer, and since Hal didn't protest -- she didn't actually do anything yet -- he scooped her up and carried her inside her quarters. Cole followed dutifully, closing the twin glass doors, and Dorian took up a seat in the biggest armchair before the hearth, still holding the slender elf in her tight ball to his chest. He petted her and swept her hair over one of her shoulders so he could rub her neck and then her upper back. He did all the things she did for him when he was depressed or ill or injured. She was the one who taught him this sort of love, this touchy-feely vulnerability that wasn't sexual or flirtatious or designed to be outrageous, to make the other person sweat. Dorian learned it all from Hal. He wasn't always comfortable offering it to just about anyone else, at least not when he was sober. Even cuddling with Bull felt a little too scary sometimes. But this was his Dalish Inquisitor, his best friend. This was the woman who fit into his arms like she was made for them, who had changed his life effortlessly, turned it into something with purpose. She had opened his eyes to things beyond the Magisterium, beyond his father's expectations and his noble obligations. It was an honor to take care of her. To hold her to him when she needed it. Besides, she was always taking care of everyone else -- of all of Thedas -- and while her Wolf was away, it was practically a duty for Dorian to tease her and touch her. A duty he cherished.

Even when it interrupted drunken anal in Bull's fantastic new swing. At least that's what he kept telling himself. Luckily, the cold of the night air had gone a long way toward easing his physical frustrations, and now it was just Dorian and Hal, curled up in silence by the fire, being close. And Cole, standing like a creep just behind Dorian's shoulder, watching them with his needy moon face.

The three of them made only occasional rustling noises when they shifted, but were otherwise hushed, the boys waiting for their shellshocked leader to speak first. But she didn't. She did stretch out in Dorian's lap after a while and kiss him on the cheek. He pressed his lips to her forehead and she leaned her face to his chest. She wasn't shaking anymore, seemed to be breathing slightly better, and he couldn't feel her little heart flapping in terror against him. These were all good signs.

"She doesn't understand how she could forget," Cole whispered behind them, and Dorian let out an exasperated sigh. Hal, though, didn't even look up. "How could someone forget her own name? Her parents? Her sister? She thinks it must say something terrible and dark about her soul."

Dorian tightened his arms around her and lifted his brows when she met his gaze in gentle question. "Do you want to talk about it?" She shook her head. He wrinkled his nose at her reticence, making his mustache flex, and glanced at the boy before turning back to Hal. "Do you want Cole to talk about it?" She shrugged and burrowed closer to him, dropping her eyes to her legs. "Well, I'm absolutely bursting at the seams with morbid curiosity, so I'm going to try to get him to explain. But if it upsets you, tell me." He hesitated, considered her silence, and amended, "Or hit me." He thought hopefully that he had seen the shadows change at the corners of her lips, the weak flicker of the spirit of a smile, but it was gone before he could be sure. "All right then, Cole," he declared, gesturing for the blonde shadow to join them before the fire. "Do that painful thing you do."

Delighted to finally be able to help somehow, Cole sat down cross-legged on the floor at Dorian's feet. "She worries about the children," he began like a sigh of relief, like he'd been holding these words in for hours. Perhaps he had. "They are safe and dry, sad and hurt, but asleep, no longer wandering, but the skin-and-bones pulls at her, drags at her, makes her restless, anxious, heart racing, can't breathe, all day, all day, she thinks, what's wrong with her, maybe it's the baby, only the baby makes her hurt more, makes her scared, can't breathe, can't stop thinking, loops and loops, circles, endless circles like the dust in the Hissing Wastes, can't escape it, can't focus, can't breathe! What's wrong with her! Can't sleep, can't breathe, can't calm, she wishes for drinks, wishes she could fill herself up with Qunari liquid fire that could let her relax, let her _sleep_!"

Dorian dragged a hand over his face, suddenly very aware of just how late it was. He'd like to sleep, even with the urgent droning of Cole's sloppy accent, perhaps because of it. Maybe he could convince her to go to the bed with him. They could spoon while he slept.

...And then Fen'Harel would show up and find him not taking care of her quite the way he should be and go dour and fussy and then he'd never convince the elven god to name his son Dorian. Little Dori. It'd be adorable! No, Dorian, focus. "Cole, cut to the chase." When the boy looked baffled, he clarified irritably, "Just tell me what happened between her going to sleep and now."

Cole nodded his understanding and tried again, more quietly, his voice just as much ghost as he was. "Her whole life, she doesn't remember anything before the halla. There is only the halla and her clan and Hal'lasean. She is alone, always, alone, separate, distant, watching, observing, wondering who she is, always silent, always silent, but never knowing why. Inside she is wild. Inside she is bold. Outside she is good. She tries to make up for it, becomes the best hunter, the best, the bravest, Hal'lasean, our gift from the halla, dropped off in the herd like thin air made flesh. They tell her when she's older, hears them whispering, discussing the Dalish bodies in the woods, but never details, only secrets, only ever pity when she asks. They tell her to forget the past and she does, she has, she did already, but always she wonders, even now, when she has new names, Herald, Inquisitor, Hal'la, halla, vhenan, Hal, on and on, names she wears and names she owns, but which was the first? Now she knows: Tamalin. They named her Tamalin. Little bird, he called her, but she can't remember why, and he's kind and calm until he isn't, until she's bleeding and he won't get up and Lanaya leaves her with the halla, and Mamae is beautiful, the most beautiful, and they leave the clan but they're together, they tell her, they'll stay together but they don't, she leaves then he won't then they leave and Lanaya leaves her alone, alone with the halla and the strangers, walks away forever, walks away with the memories and the words and the feelings, walks away with the past, and Hal'lasean replaces Tamalin and Inquisitor replaces Hal'lasean, but now she wonders, what did happen in the woods, what became of Babae, but mostly she thinks of Lanaya, serious Lanaya, Lanaya who makes her smile, Lanaya who holds her hand, Lanaya who braids flowers into her hair when Mamae is sick and there's no food left. She has to know if Lanaya's body too was found in the forest."

Dorian didn't catch all of it, didn't understand a good portion of what he did catch, but it was enough. He got the point. Hal spent the whole whispered speech still as death in his arms and he held her so tightly he could wrap his hands around his elbows. But if it effected her beyond that, she gave no hint. There were no tears, no expression, just silence and staring. "Maker, Hal," Dorian breathed, his sorrow for her aching in his voice. He wondered briefly if he should have called her Tamalin, but quickly thought better of it. She was his Hal. That was just how it was. "No wonder you're a bloody statue. I thought it a bit strange that a nightmare could do all this. You usually just get up and stand about outside until you calm down." He fell silent then himself because what was there to say? There was nothing at all he could tell her that could help, no joke he could make that wouldn't leave him feeling like a callous ass. It made him feel useless, helpless, and he hated that fiercely. It reminded him of Hal tied to the bed, emaciated, wasting away while the Well used her body, waiting endlessly for her blighted hobo apostate to finally see their messages for him and return to help. It reminded him of watching Alexius fall into the darkness of the blood magic he had always purported to hate, had always told Dorian and Felix were acts against the Maker.

So since he didn't know what else to do, Dorian held her to him and kissed her fine charcoal hair and prayed selfishly that whatever happened to her parents and this Lanaya didn't have anything to do with Tevinter.

It's what he was still doing when the sun finally began to rise and Fen'Harel, who looked as tired as Dorian felt, appeared at the top of the stairs, his blue eyes wrinkled with worry at the corners.

"Hal'la," he exhaled, and she looked up at him but said nothing. If she even registered his presence as something more remarkable than Cole's it must have been entirely in her eyes.

"She's not speaking for me," Dorian explained with a sigh. "But I imagine you'll have better luck."

"Thank you, Dorian," said the bald elf, and he strode quickly across the room to slide his arms under Hal's lithe form. She slipped her arms around his neck and pushed her face into his slim, muscular chest as he lifted her from Dorian's lap. "I have her now. Go get some sleep, falon."

Exhausted and concerned as he was, Dorian's eyes widened in surprise at the label, his brows rising dramatically.

"Falon," said Cole to himself, rocking a little by the fire, "friend."

Maybe he had a shot at that namesake thing after all.


	15. Chapter 15

Fen'Harel did not even need to seek Dorian's assistance when it came time to usher Cole from the room. He did not have to speak a word. The Tevinter mage, clumsy and entitled though he was, insisted the spirit-in-human-form leave the Inquisitor's quarters ahead of him, told him in no uncertain terms that letting Fen'Harel tend to Hal'lasean was the most helpful thing Cole could do at the moment. The Dread Wolf found himself constantly grateful for Dorian's presence in his vhenan's life, a thing he would not have thought possible only a year ago.

Once the door at the bottom of the stairs was closed, he moved to the side of Hal'la's bed and settled her lovingly down, freeing his arms so that he could remove his boots and clothing. It was only when he was completely nude that he climbed onto the mattress beside her, sliding himself beneath the covers before tucking them carefully around his love. She wore her woolen shift still and made no move to strip out of it, so he pressed himself to her, his chest against her back, and wrapped his arms around her waist to secure their closeness. She closed her eyes and relaxed slightly into the interplay of their shared magic. There was still tension in her, a deep, tangled thing that would require great patience to unknot, and he could sense the shallowness of her breathing and the uncertainty of her pulse. Hal'la's face was as still as the murals he painted of her story in his rotunda, as inexpressive as his own had been for so long to protect himself from her, to protect her from the truth. But where his neutrality had been careful and controlled, hers was blank with shock. As though the muscles of her face had forgotten how to articulate. There was a persistent ache in his sternum for her, a sorrow for the child Hal'lasean, an irritable helplessness for the woman in his arms who hurt too much to feel it yet. He pressed his lips to her ear, to her neck, to her shoulder. He must do this work as delicately and purposefully as if he were unearthing relics in his forgotten temples. She was not a fragile creature, his halla. She would find a way to survive and thrive despite or because of or with this if he left her to her own devices. But he could ease that for her, could soothe the hurts and quicken the process. If nothing else, he could hold her. 

"Oh, vhenan," he sighed with his lips against the skin of her shoulder. "You are not speaking?"

She gave the tiniest of nods.

"Do you not speak because you do not wish to speak?"

Again, she nodded.

"Do you not speak because you have nothing to say?"

Another small nod.

"Do you not speak because you cannot? Because something prevents you?"

She hesitated.

"Try, vhenan," he encouraged tenderly. "It need not be much. But I have you, you are safe in my arms now, and I would hear the sweet music of your voice so that I can know you will be all right in time." He kissed her cheek. "Will you do me that honor, ma lath?"

Hal'lasean shivered slightly, a tremor that ran the length of her body, and he tightened his arms around her, careful to keep his hands from slipping lower, from tracing the new, subtle swell of her belly where his child grew within her. After what he had seen of her dream this night, now was not the time to remind her of her pregnancy. She made no sound at all for a long enough time that it would have worried most of her loved ones, but he was no mortal, and though he was not always a patient man, in this he did not mind the wait. It was only when it seemed she might have forgotten his request that he opened his mouth to prod her gently onward, but that was precisely when she managed finally to make a sound. It was not quite a word, just the ghost of a whimper, a soft voiced 'mm' in her throat that would have aroused him in other circumstances. But in this, he kissed her neck in reward for her effort and she tried again.

"How...?" was all she got out, and even then it was more a breath than a question. But it was enough. He let out a long exhale in relief and rested his forehead against the blade of her shoulder. 

"How did I know?" he finished for her. She nodded again. "My wards around your dreams began to break apart. I sensed it through the Fade and came to you as soon as I could. I thought perhaps you were in danger. I did not see all of what you recalled, but I saw enough. I saw more than enough. And I could not bear to let you suffer this alone."

She said nothing in response, made no sounds at all, but she did rest her arms over his and intertwine their fingers. He let out a long breath he had not even realized he was holding, warm air against the bare skin of her shoulder. He briefly considered asking if it would be easier for her to express herself in the Fade, but of course it would not be. Not for her. The Fade was his place of ease, his way of speaking the unspeakable, doing the things that frightened him. But Hal'la was always grounded in the physical world. It was not lost on him that his anchor in her hand drew her to the Fade even as she was his anchor to the world of flesh and breath and blood. There was beautiful balance to the things they brought each other. He would have to find another way of reaching her. Perhaps, he thought, directness was the answer.

"I will stay until you tell me to leave again," Fen'Harel murmured, his word to her if not an actual promise. "We have time. When you wish to speak, I will listen. Or, if you would prefer, I will ask you yes or no questions. I will speak for you, if that is your wish. Whatever it is you need, my heart, I will endeavor to give you. Think on it. Tell me when you are ready."

This time Hal'lasean did not require so much time to prepare for the task he had given her. She pulled his arms from her waist and sat up, drawing her shift over her head and tossing it carelessly aside. She was naked and beautiful in the firelight and he could not help his needful gaze traveling the rounding of her stomach, so slight it was practically unnoticeable, the nearly invisible swelling of her breasts, the ripe red at the points of her ears, all the signs that foretold their future together, that spoke of the life she carried. She must have seen the enormity of the love in his eyes as he swept them over her body because her brows twitched inward and she reached for his hand. Her fingers trembled against his wrist as she slid back down in the bed and rolled to face him. When she was settled, their foreheads touching, she placed his palm lightly on her womb. His heart stretched painfully, filled simultaneously with his devotion and his empathy, and though Hal'la's expression still did not change more than an imperceptible amount -- the barest wrinkle of her dark brow -- her teal eyes searched his for understanding. The emotion in them was distant, almost as removed as if she had been made Tranquil in his absence, but it was there for him to see. His heart was showing him her fear.

Fen'Harel carefully resisted the urge to shut his eyes against the rush of imagery he had witnessed in her dream, the blood that flowed like a river from her mother's womb, two lives' worth, evacuating in a desperate rush, leaving only a shell with Hal'lasean's silver hair, Hal'lasean's thick, amused brow, Hal'lasean's full lips. This time they both shook with the force of the memory. But he did not close his eyes. He would not turn away from her pain. So he held her gaze with his hand on her belly until the wave of remembered death swept over him and then leaned forward to kiss her tellingly on the lips, a chaste, sweet thing meant only to remind her of his love, his presence, his willingness to be in this with her. It split their fear between them and they balanced it together as they now did all things. They shared his magic, they shared their love, they shared her Inquisition, they shared their future, they shared a child, they shared a bed when they could, they shared a common dream for The People, for Elvhenan, even if hers was not quite what he had imagined on his own. They shared his obligation, his duty, his blunders. Now he offered himself to her with only a knowing look, offered to take on her burden for his own as she had done for him.

"I don't feel much," she admitted in the silence of their soulful communion, and he was so pleased to hear her speak that he smiled and kissed her again. Even if it was not the most appropriate response for her meaning. She accepted the kiss, but was too still to chase his lips with hers, to kiss back. "I think I'm in shock, ma lath."

He smiled again, more broadly this time, almost stupidly wide, very nearly a grin. HIs amusement and gladness overtook his understanding. He pulled his hand up her body, tracing fingers between her breasts, up her throat. He slipped his hand into her hair and stroked his thumb across her temple. "I would imagine so."

"You're avoiding saying my name," Hal'la whispered next. It was not an accusation. It was almost completely devoid of emotion. It was a simple statement of fact. Astonishingly perceptive fact. His smile softened in confession.

"I did not wish to upset you further," Fen'Harel admitted in apology. "I thought perhaps you would have conflicted feelings about which name was your true name." Her brows twitched again, shifting toward one another in thought. Then she nodded her agreement. He was right. She was conflicted. "I love the name your parents gave you," he continued gently, his smile growing hopefully. "Just as I love the name you used when you became my heart. Whatever you choose, I will honor and love and support that choice. You once learned to call me by an old name after all."

Her gaze fell to his lips and then down, settling on the wolf jaw against his chest, where it worried over the far away struggle of her feelings, over the shadow cast by her wrestling identities. It was another very long period of time before she finally met his eyes with hers and when she did, Fen'Harel was encouraged to see a little bit of her determined glint in that underwater gaze. "Tamalin died in the woods with her family," she breathed, the words more air shaped by teeth and tongue than vibrating with her voice. "I am your Hal'la."

"Ma halla," Fen'Harel purred, and pressed his lips to hers again. "Ma sa'lath."


	16. Chapter 16

Hal'la had finally fallen asleep as the sun crested the mountain peak outside her balcony and began to pour warm yellow light across the stone floor. It had taken Fen'Harel some time to accomplish her relaxation, but he had done it with every non-sexual means at his disposal. In the end, it was his singing that did the trick. He had run out of options and she was still wide awake, staring at him impassively, when he found himself humming. It was a song he had not thought about in literal ages, an Elvhen lullaby older than even Elgar'nan, a soft, magic-wrapped melody his nanny had warbled at his cribside when he was a small boy and refused to sleep. It was a song about all the wondrous things a child could find in the Fade while they rested. He remembered only some of the words, which he found distressing, but what he did not recall, he hummed, and she slipped against him with her face nuzzled to the curve of his neck, and he combed her long hair with loving fingers, coaxing it into elaborate braids as he sang. By the time her breathing was even, her tresses were fit for the courts of Arlathan. He let out a breath of relief as the tension fell away from her muscles and kissed the woven art he had made, soaking in her warm, wild scent.

He had only just closed his eyes himself, eager to find her dreams in the Fade and keep the memory at bay, when all his hard work was demolished in one thundering crash -- the wooden slamming of the door below.

She was awake again immediately, rigid with alarm in his arms. Fen'Harel held her, caressed her, and propped himself up a little in her bed, letting the blanket fall away from his pale, wiry chest but making certain it was tucked modestly around her shoulders. And he waited, his expression cold and challenging, for whichever of her inner circle had the audacity to burst in so early. Based on the forcefulness of the entrance, he would have put his money on Cassandra. Possibly an inebriated Bull.

Which was why he was so very surprised when Varric came barreling up the stairs, already tripping over himself in apology. "Hal, we held them off as long as we--" The dwarf suddenly registered the second body in the bed, the irritated neutrality of Fen'Harel's visage. Varric rolled his eyes. "You're going to want to put some clothes on, Chuckles. There's a whole party headed up. Cole and I convinced them to wait until after breakfast," he leaned back toward the stairs and raised his voice to a shout, "but Fenris is an unbelievable gurn's ass!" He held out his arms in a helpless shrug. "They're coming up. They keep insisting she'll want to know whatever it is." Varric shouted at the stairs again, "Even though they won't fucking tell me!"

Fen'Harel held up his hand to stay Varric's mouth and then flipped it over to offer his palm. "Her shift. My breeches. If you would be so kind." He glanced down at her blank expression as she watched him, reticent and wary, and then let out an agitated huff. "I only  _just_ got her to sleep, you know."

"I know, I figured, and I'm sorry," sighed Varric, stepping further into the room and peering at the floor and chairs until he found Fen'Harel's neatly folded pants and Hal'la's rumpled pile of woolen shift. The dwarf gathered them both and shoved them at the mage's hand. "Tiny showed up in the dining room complaining about Daisy cockblocking the poor bastard. He said Sparkler came in a few hours ago and passed out hard."

With the clothing in hand, Fen'Harel gently lifted Hal'la's arms over her head and slipped the shift down to her shoulders, carefully avoiding mussing her smooth braids and skillfully keeping her covered at all times. Varric had seen her nude before many times in the field, but that had always been her choice. He would never take that from her. As he maneuvered her to pull the fabric over her hips, he thought with grim amusement of every other lover he had ever had, how any one of them he might have left asleep with breasts bared, splay-legged and satisfied as he entertained some business or other in full view, unconcerned with their wishes or propriety. It made a statement. It was what people expected of the young Dread Wolf. Indolence, arrogance, excess, lust. Women who bedded him tried to catch his interest, win his heart, but they were ambitious, vapid things. The dangerous ones could intrigue him for a time, the coquettish ones would invest him in the chase, but inevitably he would become bored with himself or with them. They offered him nothing but a diversion, delicious though it may have been. There were no truly bashful or modest nobles in Arlathan. There were no spirits like Hal'lasean's, pure and compassionate with easy, genuine smiles and shy blushes. Oh, they were cunning. They were dangerous and powerful and beautiful. Men and women. But they were never honest or open or sincere. These were qualities he had only ever found among the slaves and the lowest populations of commoners, and he was endlessly grateful to his younger self for ignoring them in favor of livelier hunts. He would loathe himself even more than he already did with what he saw now was clearly a vicious form of rape on his guilty conscience.

But all of that was before Hal'la. Before he learned the difference between infatuated lust and quiet, consuming, desperate love. It had distressed him, of course, to kiss or touch her when her violet vallaslin was so sharply visible on her dear face. He constantly reminded himself that she was not a slave, not in the way that would make this wrong, that she knew him only as her equal, the apostate Solas, that nothing about her love for him or his for her was in any way coerced. Still, it was so much simpler now -- not just because she knew the truth of who he was and still held him her equal -- but because her face was unmarked and when he looked at her now, he saw only his heart. He no longer needed to remind himself she had chosen him freely. No, he no longer needed to, but she often did, when she saw him slide inexorably into the depths of his self-hatred and guilt. And he was glad for that. Her free will had brought her to him. And so he would always honor it.

When his love was clothed and sitting up, he slid to the side of the bed and stepped into his breeches, unbothered with his nakedness in front of Varric -- because that was nothing new either. And because it pleased him greatly when the dwarf threw up a protective arm before his face and groaned, whipping around to face the wall.

"Andraste's ass, Chuckles!"

"No," corrected a soft, distantly amused voice from the bed. From his Hal'la, so silent and scared all night. "Fen'Harel's ass."

Even if he had not been surprised and delighted to hear her speak, to hear her  _joke_ , he would have laughed. But because it was so good to have a small sign of her dissipating shock, Fen'Harel grinned wolfishly at her. He thought his heart might burst when she tried to smile back.

"I walked right into that one," Varric sighed. 

Fen'Harel had just finished lacing himself up when a ruckus like a druffalo herd came spilling up the stairs. The child-like Merrill was at the head, though she was not leading. That place was taken forcefully by a white-haired elf with Lyrium lines crossing just under his skin, who was just short of shoving her with his hand between her shoulder blades. Fen'Harel assumed this must be Fenris, for he was trailed by an anxious Hawke, who had a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to slow him down. But the ex-slave was having none of it.

"Good morning," he greeted the intruders coolly, his brows quirked only enough so that they could read how unwelcome they were. How inappropriate this was. He clasped his hands behind his back as he always had as Solas, his wolf jaw dark against his freckled skin. The young Dalish girl -- though now that they were out of the Fade, he thought she must be older than his Hal'la -- took one look at his bare chest, tripped over her own feet, turned an angrily embarrassed red, and clapped both hands over her face. Fenris grunted as he ran into her back and Hawke into his. 

" _Merrill_ ," he snarled, and she shook her head dramatically.

"I'm sorry, but he's-- he's--"

"I may have told her you're Elvhen," Hal'la murmured apologetically from the bed, but she was standing now, sweeping herself into her housecoat and tying it closed. "Merrill, it's all right. He's no different than any other man."

It would never cease to astound him, how she could be so hurt and vulnerable and traumatized one moment and then the calm, collected Inquisitor the next. But his marveling at her did not keep him from sending her a playful scowl at her words. "I beg your pardon."

She smiled at him and Fen'Harel's heart took wing.


	17. Chapter 17

"Don't get an even bigger head, Chuckles," Varric teased dryly, dropping heavily into one of the armchairs by the hearth. "Daisy's just not very good with nudity."

Merrill was still blushing vibrantly, and while she took her hands down from her face, she was very intently avoiding so much as glancing in Fen'Harel's direction. It was amusing enough that he considered letting her suffer, but just as he was coming to the conclusion that he should err on the side of sympathy, Hal'la was beside him, offering him the robe he kept in her quarters and a light kiss at the corner of his lips. He quirked that side of his mouth in a smile and faithfully dressed himself in the housecoat, tying it loosely closed just above his waist. The intensity of Merrill's relief was comical, so he made a point to leave a deep v open in the front. Varric smirked at him approvingly. 

"Solas," Hawke greeted, and he inclined his head at her. 

"Hawke. You look well."

"As do you." She gestured at Merrill and then Fenris. "This is Merrill. She was the First of Clan Sabrae. This is my--" She hesitated and then cleared her throat. "This is my Fenris." Fenris looked up at her in surprise, his conflict clear on his face, and Hawke gave a hapless shrug.

"Merrill I have met," Fen'Harel admitted, but he gave her a nod anyway, now that she was capable of looking at him. He gave the ex-slave a hard, appraising look. "Fenris. I have heard much about you." Fenris gave a grunt.

"Please," Hal'la addressed the room, a hand patting at the tapestry he had made of her hair as if she had just realized it was there, "come in. Have a seat." She settled on the end of her bed, her bare feet resting on the Dalish hope chest she kept there, and Fen'Harel joined her. Part of him could not but imagine them ruling over their noble affairs in Arlathan, seated side by side on intricately carved twin thrones, and his ribs ached. How proud he would have been to have her in the pantheon as his consort. How much they could have accomplished for The People. How Mythal would have loved his Hal'lasean. How jealous Andruil would have been. But those last parts were a bonus, a side benefit of a situation that would have been absolute bliss. He was more than content, though, with watching her make judgments from her single throne, to be a small part of the shadow cast by her brilliant light. She wore her power much more naturally than he ever had.

Fenris gave Merrill a final push into the room and moved past her to sit down in one of the chairs by the fire. Hawke leaned against Hal'la's desk, her arms crossed under her chest, and then it was only the vallaslin-clad Dalish mage who still stood, awkward and uncertain off to one side, even while all of her companions' attention was on her. When the girl did nothing but shift and stutter, the white-haired elf let out an audible sigh and turned his attention to Hal'la. "Merrill has something important to tell you." He was gruff and frank, this Fenris, and when Fen'Harel suddenly imagined him as a male Cassandra, he had to fight back his smirk.

Merrill's eyes went wide with alarm and the color returned to her cheeks in a rush. "Well, I-- oh dear, you see--" Fenris glared at her and Hawke was cringing. Only Varric seemed openly sympathetic.

"Hey, Daisy," the dwarf ventured encouragingly, "whatever it is, it's gonna be fine. Hal's never met a problem yet she couldn't solve. Isn't that right, Chuckles?"

"She holds a perfect record," he assured the girl. Hal'la tensed a little beside him, no doubt thinking of the Qunari Dreadnaught she sacrificed to save the Chargers or the captured Inquisition forces she left to die so they could track Red Templars with civilian slaves. He could practically feel her listing the names of her dead charges, the people she felt she had failed, the ones she could not save. He slipped his fingers around hers and squeezed.

"No, it's-- it's not that..." said Merrill lamely. "Ooh, I don't know how to do this!"

"Just do it," growled Fenris. Perhaps he was not the male Cassandra. He reminded Fen'Harel of an abused hound, wary and defensive, always ready to bite.

When Merrill still seemed incapable of speaking her piece, Fen'Harel finally stepped in, drawing himself up to show his full stature, still small when compared to human men, but too broad and tall for a modern elf. It was something Hal'la frequently mentioned with purr in her voice when she was running her hands over his chest and shoulders. "Merrill," he began in a professorial tone, "is this about what you saw last night?"

She startled at the question, and though Fen'Harel would not have thought it possible, her eyes grew even larger. "How did you--"

Before she could collapse back into stammering, he answered simply, "An educated guess." When his vhenan braced herself beside him, he moved his arm around her waist and pulled her a little closer. It was a brazen act of public affection considering their audience, but he would rather give her his support when she might not need it than have her composure crack in front of strangers. Strangers she wanted for allies for the long road ahead. 

"Well, it's--" The girl hesitated again, glancing first at Varric, then Fenris, and finally at Hal'la. "It's very personal! You might wish--"

"We don't do secrets this high up in the Inquisition," Hal'la interrupted gently. "Not when it is at all avoidable. There is nothing about last night that needs to be private. Varric and Solas are my clan, and Varric trusts and values everyone in this room. So I do too."

Fen'Harel withheld his flinch, kept hidden his worry for Hal'lasean's constant willingness to forgive, to trust, to try again, even when it was the thing responsible for his happiness. One day it was going to get her hurt. Or worse. And he would not always be here to protect her.

Merrill wrung her hands together like an anxious raccoon, now staring between Fen'Harel and Hal'lasean, then Fenris and Hawke, and finally Varric, who smiled helpfully at her. That small gesture seemed to do it. "I...saw--" She flushed and tried again. "Hal'lasean, leth--lethallan, I...was not born into Clan Sabrae. My parents' clan was Alerion in the Nevarran hills." She paused to collect herself and Fen'Harel's gaze darkened. All of this so she could make herself feel better with tales of what they might have in common? Selfish, foolish child! "When I showed magical abilities, we already had our fill of mages, so at the Arlathvhen, I was given to Sabrae to be their First."

Hal'la was listening intently beside him, expression neutral, eyes sharp, but he could feel the tension in her back, see the clench of her jaw, knew what it meant when she leaned closer to him. The memory was resurfacing. Her pulse picked up, her breathing grew shallow. Enough of this, enough.

"Da'len," Fen'Harel said firmly, "this is not the time for such a story."

"Let her  _finish_ ," Fenris growled, leaning toward Fen'Harel. The Wolf inside him raised his hackles, refused to break eye contact first. And Fenris seemed to have a similar urge. Their gazes stayed locked hard together, the Wolf glaring at the abused hound, the abused hound scowling back in challenge. The tension was palpable, which was no doubt why Hal'lasean reached for Fen'Harel's chin and turned his face to hers. The Wolf was furious, but the man was grateful. It was not defeat to look to his mate.

"It's okay, Solas," she murmured soothingly, more for the Wolf's benefit than for his. "I'm okay." He took in a deep breath and turned his gaze back to Fenris. The moment had past, but they still locked eyes, still appraised each other for weaknesses. "Please, lethallan, go ahead."

Merrill looked uncertainly to Fen'Harel, no doubt because she knew him to be Elvhen and was nervous to go against his wishes even if the Inquisitor allowed it. So he pulled himself from Fenris again and gave her a small nod. She let out a hard breath. "There were many of us looking for new clans that year," she continued, and now she was cringing as though she were preparing to say something terrible. And suddenly Fen'Harel knew that terrible thing would involve little Tamalin. Hal'la must have sensed it too because she began ever so slightly to tremble. He tightened his arm around her. "And not everyone could be taken in. My...my uncle -- my father's brother -- his daughter was one of those children who could not be offered a space in another clan." Hal'la was beginning to hyperventilate beside him. He sucked in a breath and moved himself swiftly behind her, pressing his chest to her back, placing a leg on either side of her and squeezing with gentle but steady pressure. His arms curled around her stomach and pulled her tightly to him. She leaned back, let him take her weight, but the panic did not subside. The others were watching her as she struggled, Varric worried but confused, Hawke sympathetic, Merrill guilty, and Fenris...

Fenris was leaned toward her with his elbows on his knees, his eyes narrowed and his brow pulled low, studying her almost hungrily, studying her as if she held a secret he desperately needed, studying her as if he were willing her to speak her turmoil or at least to let them see it. It reminded Fen'Harel of a leering voyeur, but there was something very chaste about the attention. It was the only reason he was not taking the other man to task.

"I-I'm so so sorry," squeaked Merrill, and even though Hal'la was not in tears, the other girl burst into them, wet and reflective and pathetic. Fen'Harel wanted to slap her. "I never...I never knew what became of them. If I'd known..." But she would not have done anything. She had been a child herself, and Dalish besides. She would have left the little family to their fate as all her kin had done. "My uncle...a crafter...he had two daughters, you see. The mage and another little girl." She whimpered and Fen'Harel scowled. Fenris seemed incapable of looking away from Hal'la's anxiety even for a moment. It was almost the same way he had once watched her hurt when he had pushed her away. When he had felt it necessary to witness the destruction he had wrought for her sake, but mostly because he wanted to be sure he suffered for his deeds. "They were named Lanaya and Tamalin."

"...Okay," said Varric awkwardly, "I am completely lost."

Even though she had seen it coming, Hal'lasean took a sharp, shuddering breath, her mouth slightly open and her eyes unfocused and her spine digging into his skin because she pressed so hard against him. He put his lips to her ear. "You are safe now," he reminded her, his voice thick with his hurt for her, "you are safe in my arms, vhenan."

Her gaze zeroed in suddenly on Merrill, turned hard and ruthless. "Prove it," was all she said, her voice sharp-edged as her daggers.

No one was more surprised by this than Fen'Harel.


	18. Chapter 18

Merrill's jaw dropped. Her cheeks were still wet, her eyes puffy and red, but she had been taken so aback by Hal'la's demand that she was shocked out of crying completely. Fen'Harel could feel the elf in his arms gripping hard to the small slip of control she had found with those two words, using it to anchor her, using it to help her breathe a little more easily. It did seem to be working; he was no longer so worried that she might faint should she become any more agitated. But he was struggling to understand what had changed within her. Was it something he said? He told her she was safe. Called her his heart. And what did Merrill know about him? That he was a Fadewalker, an Elvhen. Could Hal'la be concerned for his safety? Or for her own? Did she fear a familial connection? But  _why_? Perhaps it was too painful for her to consider the past when only hours before she had declared Tamalin Alerion dead. 

"I-- wha--" Merrill stammered, looking desperately to Fenris and Hawke and Varric for help, either in defending herself or else in comprehending what had just occurred. " _How_?" 

His trembling love pulled herself together and carefully removed her body from his arms. She took her feet, stepped off her hope chest, and crossed her arms imperiously under her breasts. He was impressed -- and then alarmed -- to find that she was steady and graceful, that somehow she was managing to armor plate her mind and heart, to make herself invulnerable to attack. Or perhaps she was attempting to make herself invulnerable to compassion. To pain. To feeling at all. Her features were so hard. Fen'Harel had seen her this way only twice: when she had visited Blackwall in prison after learning the truth of who he was and when passing judgment on Samson. The first had been to protect herself, to manage her fury and hurt, to keep a clear head when she was deciding what to do about her companion's-- Ah. That was it. She did not trust her judgment now in the face of this long-lost memory, in the face of this long-lost family. She had been alone in that way for her entire life, or what she could remember of it. She had only just found a new clan here that loved her well and unconditionally, as she had once requested of him. She was terrified and emotional and something in this situation made her feel that she must act as Inquisitor, not just as Hal'lasean.

"The burden of proof is yours," Hal'la replied dismissively, claiming her space in the center of her quarters so there could be no doubt in the room as to which of them was in charge. Merrill's mouth worked like a fish and she looked to her companions again for guidance or help. But Hawke seemed just as stunned, Varric was completely lost. It was only Fenris of the Kirkwall crew who was looking at Hal'la with something closer to respect. Not that he had ever  _not_ respected her that Fen'Harel was aware, but something had shifted between her terror and her control. There was a cold empathy in Fenris' features and he sat back in his chair, crossing his arms in mimicry of Hal'la's, watching with what looked remarkably like approval. No, not approval. Vindication?  _Validation_.

"But I--" continued Merrill uselessly. "I told you...!"

"Does  _someone_ want to tell me what in the name of Andraste's sacred ashes is going on here!" Varric hit his fist on the arm of his chair for emphasis.

"Merrill is Hal'lasean's cousin," answered Hawke. "The Inquisitor's given name was Tamalin. They're both from Clan Alerion." She probably meant it as an aside, but it was too sensitive a subject to let slide. All the human woman accomplished -- besides Varric's eyes widening in realization -- was to earn Hal'la's ire.

" _Purportedly_!" Hal'lasean snapped, whipping her head to stare Hawke down. "The only things Merrill has told me are things she could easily have gleaned from seeing into my dreams."

" _Why_ would I make something like this up?!" Merrill cried, her voice pitched high with her dismay.  _  
_

"Hal," Varric cautioned worriedly, rising to his feet and reaching out gently for her forearm, for any kind of skin contact, looking to calm her down. Because her breathing was coming hard again and when he touched her, she recoiled as if she'd been burned. The dwarf cringed but tried again, holding up his other hand to show he meant no harm. "Hal, come on, you're just ups--"

" _No_ , Varric!" Hal'la barked in protest, but she took a step back from him, which was a telling mistake. She was not the person in charge now. She was scared, she was losing the fight to keep her composure in check. Her cheeks were flushing with her growing panic and dread. "I am the head of the Inquisition! The most powerful and influential force in all of Thedas! I cannot just...let someone claiming to be related to me capitalize on my inability to remember my childhood to gain access to--" She shook her head and stepped quickly past Hawke to the balcony doors, which she threw open. The winds of late autumn blew damp and cold into the room and she stepped into them, leaning against the banister and clutching at it for stability, her face turned toward the mountains. Varric took a tentative step toward her and stopped himself, turning instead to lift his brows at Fen'Harel in question. 

He was already standing. Already stepping around the chest at the end of the bed and closing his robe more tightly around him so he could join her outside. Behind him, he was aware of Varric crossing to Merrill, offering his comfort to her instead, giving her murmured words of encouragement, little insights into why "Hal" was acting the way she was. It made Fen'Harel furious. It made him want to growl at Hawke and Varric that  _this_ was why their Dalish charge was still such a  _child_ , still so  _weak_. He could not imagine how it was that she and his Hal'la came from the same bloodline, much less the same race. Merrill was so very... _Dalish._ So very narrow and  _young_ and concerned with her own needs. 

When he was just behind Hal'la, he reached for her, his palm moving for its favorite place between her shoulder blades. She tensed before he even made contact, so he withdrew his hand and moved instead to stand beside her. To place his fingers on the cold stone of the banister next to hers so that their pinkies touched but nothing more. This she accepted, this she did not turn away, and so he slid his body closer to hers until their shoulders pressed together, allowing him to feel his power pulsing through her, calling to the portion that still remained with him. He listened to their interplay, hers frantic, volatile, sparking, his steady and still, soothing hers, calming hers as best it could.

"Don't," she whispered, her breath shuddering high in her chest, the struggle of her lungs obvious this close to her. "Whatever you're going to say, don't." When she tried to add a little voice to her words, it broke, pitched up, gave her away. And yet even as she begged for his silence, she leaned into him, put more of her body against his, poured their magic together willingly. He wanted to comfort her, to murmur sweet things in her ear, to hold her and speak to her reasonably until she came around to the conclusion he knew she eventually would reach. But she said no, so he did not. She, however, did. "I know," she squeaked out, her face contorting with anguish. "I know she's telling the truth. When...when she said it, I...remembered her, I think. I..." She was shaking again, shivering now too with cold, and though she was so very close to weeping, her throat was strained with her desperate attempts to keep it in. "I can't take care of anyone else, ma Fen! That's all she is, another person to take care of! And I didn't...I didn't ask for this! I didn't ask for her to be..."

Fen'Harel wrapped his arms around her, pulled her to him and pressed his lips to the icy tip of her ear. She did not move away this time but nor did she melt against him as she usually did. She continued to stare out at the mountains, quivering and trying not to fall apart, but she let herself be held. Let him hold her up. Let him take care of her. "Ma halla," he murmured, his lips brushing her skin, "you have no obligation to her. She is blood, but she need not be family. You have made a family here and you do not need to invite her into it. We cannot choose our kin, but we can choose to let them into our lives or to hold them at a distance. You owe her nothing. _You_ choose who you are. _You_ choose your true name."

Hal'la's lips twisted harshly downward as tears welled in her eyes, a force she could no longer keep at bay. "I used to dream of something like this," she whispered. "That my true clan would find me, an uncle or a...a sister would..." Hal'la let out a hard, slightly hysterical laugh. The kind that was very nearly a sob. "But they didn't want me either, did they! None of them...no one..."

She went to cover her face with her hands but he caught her wrists, pulled them slowly to his chest, where he turned them so he could place her palms inside his robe, over his heart. "Look at me, vhenan," Fen'Harel nearly growled. Her skin flushed with her embarrassment at the intensity of her emotions, no doubt in large part because of the people still watching from her quarters. "Not at them. Look at me." Wet teal eyes reluctantly found his. " _I_ want you. I _need_ you. Whatever else there is, whatever else is lacking, you will _always_ be wanted. You will _always_ be loved."

Her brows knit together as they climbed her forehead and now the tears spilled over her cheeks, tracing slow tracks over her lips and chin. Her features twisted with her agony. "You _left_ me," she breathed, and then the first sob came. He felt as if she had stabbed him in the gut. "You only stayed because I didn't give you a choice!"


	19. Chapter 19

Something terrible and dark gripped Fen'Harel's heart, squeezing and crushing like a gauntleted fist. He was aware that his mouth was hanging open much like Merrill's had been, that his own hands were trembling, that his brow pulled down so low he was not completely sure if he was furious or wounded. No, guilty. He was guilty. It flooded him in a familiar way, though it no longer felt so much like home. He had found relief from it these last two months, had soaked it up with his hope, his love, with new direction and purpose and  _life_. A true life, outside of Elvhenan and The People, beyond his duties and his crimes and his consuming need to atone. So his guilt and his shame, his self-loathing, though never completely gone, felt strange and uncomfortable, as ill-fitted as when he had pretended to be the young Dread Wolf again for the silanavhen. No longer who he was and yet inextricably a part of him forever.

He had foolishly believed them to be past this. She had forgiven him immediately, absolved him without thought, cared for him through his turmoil and uncertainty. The first night in her bed, in her arms, after being away on his own, he had asked her with fear throbbing in his veins why she was not furious with him, terrified of him, or too hurt to want him near her. He could not understand for the life of him why he would be deserving of the feel of her skin against his after everything he had done, not just in his life, but to her of all people. She had smiled at him, kissed his jaw, and explained that it did not matter what the Dalish called him. She knew him, knew his heart, his spirit, would not entertain a world in which his love for her had not been genuine. She had stroked his cheek and ear, traced fingers over his chest, and told him that she knew why he had not told her who he was. Why he had felt the need to leave her. She had been so sure of her answers, her reasoning, his love. He should have known better than to think that somewhere inside her there was no dark place full of her doubts and fears and furies at how he had treated her. And now it had finally come out.

Hal'la had not tried to push him away despite her words, had not collapsed into her sobs after that first gasping sound. There were no more tears tumbling down her face, though there were plenty waiting to do so. And she was shaking. Oh, how she shook! He tightened his hold on her, searched her eyes fiercely with his own, screwed up his face with the effort of making her see, making her _know_ that he wanted her with everything he was, everything he had. "Vhenan," he croaked, his voice sounding taut and broken and much too loud. He was certain the Kirkwall contingent watching from inside could hear him. Well, let them hear. Let everyone hear. He loved her. He wanted her. He needed her. He was not ashamed of those things. Scared of them, oh, yes, but not ashamed. No, his only shame where Hal'la was concerned was because of his own actions. He had to make sure she felt his love in the very core of her soul. "Vhenan, I  _left_ you because I had  _no choice_!" Her eyes rounded and her chin dimpled. Another few tears fell lazily down her cheeks. "I stayed because _you_ are the _only_ thing that has ever mattered more to me than The People! Because you  _gave_ me a choice when I thought there was only one path and that I must walk it alone! I stayed because  _you_ gave me the opportunity for a life with you -- one I _covet_ \-- and I  _choose_ you! I  _want_ you! I want  _you_! That will _never_ change!" It was only when he sucked in a breath to continue that he realized how fiercely he had been speaking to her, how forceful his words, how firmly he gripped her. One or both of them was practically quaking now. She was rasping in air with difficulty, trying hard to fill her panicked lungs without let herself weep, and when she turned her face away from his with what he was appalled to discover looked like the shame and guilt he was battling, Fen'Harel chased her gaze, refusing to let her go. 

"I know," she gasped, and closed her eyes tightly against an oncoming sob. "I know that, I'm sorry, I'm so..."

"Do you?" Fen'Harel demanded, intense but loving, desperate but soft, "Perhaps some part of you does not believe I stay because I  _choose_ to stay. It is understandable, possibly unavoidable that you should feel that way. I will spend the rest of your days convincing you if I must. You are  _wanted_ , vhenan! Hal'lasean Lavellan, Tamalin Alerion, Herald, Inquisitor, whatever name you use,  _you are wanted_." His stomach lurched as he saw again in his mind the little gravestone in the Fade beside his.  _  
_

_Hal'lasean: Unworthy_.

He would still die alone -- neither of them could prevent that -- but he would do so knowing he had been loved by the brightest spirit he had ever encountered. Her fear, though, they could change. He was determined, resolved in that endeavor. He vowed to himself in that moment that he would find a way to make her feel just how very worthy she was. The worthiest being he knew; beyond gods, beyond the pantheon, beyond the most brilliant of the Elvhen, she above all was worthy. _  
_

Hal'la opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out, so instead she nodded, a series of tiny motions that were only slightly discernible from the way she still shook. He gathered her roughly into his arms and pressed her to him, guided her head to his chest, one hand cupping the back of her neck, the other wrapped around her waist. She didn't cry. She barely breathed. Her heartbeat was as erratic as a rift. 

From inside her quarters, Hawke awkwardly cleared her throat.

Fen'Harel felt heat in the tips of his ears but carefully willed it away from his cheeks as he turned slowly to face their captive audience. Varric was standing between Merrill and the balcony, trying and failing at being covert when he wiped at his eyes, and turning a golden pink when he felt Fen'Harel's gaze on him. Hawke and Merrill too were flushed with embarrassment, though Merrill stared openly with tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks and Hawke was studying the floor with sudden interest. At some point she had moved from the desk to the chair Fenris occupied and Fen'Harel was more than a little stunned to see her perched on the elf's lap, his arm tucked around her protectively. Fenris, for his part, was scowling thoughtfully at Hawke's knees.

"Come back inside with me, ma lath," he murmured in Hal'la's ear and she nodded against him, letting him guide her through the balcony doors that Varric closed behind them. Fen'Harel took her to her bed and convinced her body onto it, shielding her face from the others until he had dried her tears and smoothed her brow and kissed her forehead with great need. He dared not kiss her lips until she asked him to, not when her doubts and fears were so close to the surface. Her face was exhausted and impassive, but he knew her well, knew the gratitude in her teal eyes as she looked up at him, knew her vulnerability and uncertainty in how she allowed him to lead her, to articulate her into position. He did not join her on the bed, however, instead slipping his arm around her shoulders and standing by her side as they both finally gave their attentions back to the rest of the group.

There was silence then, long and awkward, punctuated by Varric coming to sit at the end of the bed so he could put a hand on one of Hal'la's ankles. He did not offer a smile or any of his usual glib remarks. Merely a supportive touch so she would know he was on her side. It was only then that Merrill wiped her face and took a timid step forward, her large eyes a mix of fearful and hopeful as they searched Hal'lasean's face for approval. 

"I...I was thinking about proof," she began.

Hal'la held up her hand and shook her head. "No, Merrill, it's...it's not important. You...you don't have to prove any--"

"But I want to!" Merrill insisted sharply, and Hal'la was too surprised to argue further. "Per-perhaps this isn't truly proof, but I-- here it goes. I remember it was a terrible storm the day you were born. Our aravel was next to yours and my mother was in with your parents to help with the delivery. I was with Lanaya. We were scared, I remember, because the thunder was so loud it shook the ground and spooked the halla. It had been going for hours. You came out silent and still, they said, but just when they were giving you up for lost, lightning struck a nearby tree and the thunder must have frightened you because you wailed like the Dread Wolf was on your heels. That's...that's why they called you Tamalin. They said the sky itself had saved your life." Hal'la was quaking again, so hard it made the mattress shift, and when the tears began to fall helplessly down her cheeks, she reached for Fen'Harel, pulled at him, so that he gladly crawled onto the bed with her and hugged her back to his chest again, protecting her with his legs, his arms, his body. "You wouldn't remember that, of course, but I do. You had a full head of hair even then, the lightest, most beautiful silver, like cobwebs coated with dew. I remember you were always running off and getting into trouble. The moment you learned to crawl, there was no keeping track of you. So Lanaya and I," and Merrill smiled suddenly at the memory, "we tied halla bells to your braids. Your first word was 'yes'. You used to say it to everything, even when you meant no. Especially when  _other_ people meant no. We would say, 'Tama, time for bed!' and you'd say, 'Yes!' and then run the other way. I remember my uncle, your father...he called you da'ean, little bird, because he said you were forever in motion like a hummingbird. Your mother tried to make him stop when you got it into your head that you wanted to fly. Oh, and there was a little town near where we camped when you were just a wee thing, two or three, and Lanaya and I would sneak off with you to the market because there was a little old lady who ran a bakery who had once loved a Dalish man with silver hair and she would give us sweet rolls if we let her hold you for a bit." Merrill took a thoughtful breath and the entire room was intensely silent in anticipation of what she would say next, their rapt attentions focused only on the story of the little Dalish girls they used to be. "When you were about that age, you decided you'd be bound to a fifteen-year-old boy in the clan who was training to be a hunter. He used to get so distressed when you wouldn't stop following him about begging for a kiss. The elders would help you find him when he hid from you because they thought it was so funny. Oh! Oh, you have a scar! Or you did have one, perhaps it's gone away now, but you had a scar just under your chin from where you split it open on a riverbank trying to help your mother gather spindleweed and blood lotus. You screamed like a despair demon all the way back to camp and all through your healing and you didn't stop until Keeper gave you fresh honey."

Hal'la lifted her hand gingerly to touch the right side of her chin, just underneath the line of her jaw, where she and Fen'Harel both knew remained the slightest indention of a scar she had always had but did not remember acquiring. "You remember all of that?" she asked, her brow furrowing with feeling. "My...parents, my sister...?"

"I told you," Merrill replied softly, venturing a little smile now that the Inquisitor was being more receptive to her history. "You are my cousin. My father's brother's girl."

"Ma serannas," Hal'la murmured, inclining her head to Merrill, "asa'var'lin." Merrill's tattooed face broke into a beaming smile.

"Well, shave my ass and call me Solas," said Varric incredulously. "Cousins!" _  
_


	20. Chapter 20

The moment she and Fen'Harel were alone again, Hal dropped back hard on her mattress and covered her face with her hands. This is what she had wanted, what she had wished for endlessly as a lonely foundling child with no memory of her origins. She had prayed that the dead couple in the woods were not her parents but her kidnappers, that somewhere her real parents were desperately searching for her, unable to sleep or eat without their darling daughter. Or if those were her parents, perhaps she had other relatives who would find her one day, a lonely grandmother with love and wisdom and stern discipline to give or a big brother whose hunting prowess was unequalled and who would track her down and carry her on his shoulders and let her eat honeyed cakes whenever she wanted. Someone, somewhere, anyone, anywhere...

There must be some person -- even just one -- who wanted her. Really wanted her. Even when she was cross or loud or rebellious. The Storyteller whose aravel she called home was kind enough, but his children were having children and he was more interested in kin who looked like him. No one else had room for her. She was the child who belonged to the whole clan, more a mascot than anything. 

But it did mean that though she had not yet showed any magical ability, she was treated as the Keeper's special project. It had started innocently enough: because she would not speak for a year after she came to Lavellan, the Keeper and First taught her to read and write so that she could always communicate with them, at least. She had devoured the knowledge like she had once sucked at the mother halla's milk: as though she were dying but for that. So when the clan's First cockily claimed she had no more need to study written language and history, that she had no need to learn about the shems, that she should concentrate on her magic, it was bright, insatiable Hal'lasean who was called in to challenge her. The Keeper told her First that when their little foundling ran out of questions, when she had answered them all, she could dictate her own studies.

That was also how a six-year-old girl, who had only recently begun to speak again, earned the spite of Lavellan's First. Every day, from then on, until the day she left for the Conclave, the Keeper asked Hal'lasean to ask her questions. And she always had at least one, which inevitably became an endless stream when she received an answer. Of course, when Deshanna, the First, was older and wiser, she admitted it was an exercise that shaped who she wanted to be as Keeper, and she became the closest thing to actual family Hal'lasean had ever known -- or at least remembered. It was also why she was the obvious choice to send out into the world: learned and sharp, literate in Elvish and the common tongues...and unattached. There would be no one to cry or complain of her absence except as it diminished the game brought home by the hunters.

Looking back at it now, she was aware that she was almost an experiment to the Keeper, a forward-thinking woman who knew that the winds of the Chantry could easily become a storm for the Dalish, and sometimes when Skyhold was quiet and the breeze blew from the Northwest, Hal wondered just how early it was she had been picked out by the Keeper as a future emissary or spy or mediator. Had she known the moment the silent foundling -- the child from nowhere who belonged to no one and would not give her name -- showed an aptitude and delight in learning that she would one day send her away? The thought made her even more nauseated now that she remembered how her father had loved her mother more than he loved his daughters, how no clan had been willing to even let them stay for more than a day or two. How could she have been so blind to the cruelty of her people? How had she not seen? If the Keeper asked her today whether she had questions, she would have more than ever before. But these were not questions to ask through letter or envoy. These would need to wait for the following summer, if Lavellan accepted her invitation for the long journey.

Fen'Harel's weight had settled beside her on the bed not long after she'd thrown herself down on it, but he let her stew and think, her face hidden, her pulse furious, her breath quick and shallow. When she finally pulled away her hands to look at him, she found him stretched out on his side, long and languid, his cheek against his palm, his elbow propping him up. His free hand lingered just beside hers, not quite touching but prepared to do so when she was ready. His gaze was drifting over her with empathy and worry and more than a little of his usual shame and guilt. When she revealed her wet eyes and turmoil, he immediately reached out to touch the tears on her skin.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she whispered, and more tears fell. "I know you chose to stay. Of course you did. I...I know why you felt you had to leave. I just...in that moment..."

He moved his fingertips to her lips to quiet her and she kissed them, which lit up his face enough to highlight just how much what she'd said must have affected him. "Everyone you have ever loved has either abandoned you or sent you away," Fen'Harel murmured soothingly, but his voice was strained with his guilt. They both knew he was included at the top of that list. "Their reasons are unimportant.  _My_ reasons are unimportant." Hal opened her mouth to argue, but he shook his head. "It has never been because of you.  _We_ are the ones who are unworthy. The ones who left or told you to leave. I need you to know that."

Hal was cringing with the effort of not protesting, so the moment he paused, she shook her head in slow denial. "You left  _because_ you are worthy. It's your conflict that shows just how truly noble you are."

He favored her with a slow, fond smile that lagged at the corners, dragged down by the constant film of his self-loathing. "I am trying to comfort  _you_ , fool woman. You may have your turn at me later."

Hal couldn't keep her sheepish half-smile away no matter how determined her head was to be miserable. Her love had that effect on her. Fen'Harel stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers and she let out a tightly held breath, scooting closer to his body. He took it as her invitation, which it was, and he moved his fingers down her neck to her clavicle, which he traced reverently, and then down to the opening of her shift, moving his magic lightly between her breasts as scouts for his touch. She shivered pleasantly and curled against him, so he moved the arm that held up his head out behind her. They both pillowed on his arm, facing each other, and the lazy fingers that rested beneath her twisted contentedly in her braids.

"Now," he said seriously, but there was a twinkle of play in his eyes, "do you know that it was never because of you? Alerion sent your family away because of cruel, ignorant Dalish tradition. Do you know that?" She hesitated and gave a small nod. "Good. Your mother died. She loved you desperately and wanted so much better for you and your sister. Anyone could see that from the way she looked at you. By how she cried..." It was startling but strangely soothing when Fen'Harel's eyes moistened as he began to discuss her past. "...at your hunger and your hurt." He breathed in sharply through his nose and rested his forehead to hers. "She did not intend to leave you. Do you know that?"

Despite the wet pain pricking at Hal's eyes, she smiled wanly at her Wolf. "Are you going to go through my whole life?"

His smirk was crooked. "Well, it is a very short one." His amusement only grew when she rolled her eyes. "Answer my question, da'len."

Recognition flickered in Hal's eyes, and, perhaps in part because she desperately did not want to answer Fen'Harel's questions, she decided to ask one of her own. "Why did you never call me that when we first met?"

"Da'len?" he clarified, and she nodded. "Would you have preferred it?"

Hal made an emphatic face, so immediate and exaggerated that he smiled. "Of course not. I would have hated it. I would have thought you a pompous ass."

His smile shifted into a grin. "Are you saying you did not think me a pompous ass?"

Her grin in return was slow and accompanied by color in her cheeks. "Never to  _me_. Perhaps to Dorian and Sera. Sometimes to Blackwall and Bull." Her eyes twinkled and she leaned in to kiss him. His face flushed warmly in response and Hal suddenly realized just how carefully he had been skirting her boundaries since she accused him of leaving. "But never to me."

"That is because you did not act like a child," Fen'Harel explained, resting his palm on her upper ribs, weighting her lungs a little so that her breathing finally began to slow. It did not deepen. She could feel that the moment it deepened, she would start sobbing and possibly never stop. She had already made a complete idiot of herself in front of Fenris and Hawke. She was not keen to make it any worse than it already was.

"But you barely know Merrill and you call her da'len," she countered softly.

"Do you disagree with the label?"

Hal started to smile, but it reversed halfway into being and slid back down into something weary and morose. "No," she admitted reluctantly. "But she's older than I am."

"In years," corrected Fen'Harel gently. "Not in any of the ways that truly matter." He smiled again, lovingly, considering the woman before him, and stroked his thumb along her collarbone. "But it is more than that. Perhaps it would have been different if you had known I was Elvhen from the beginning, though I doubt very much any awe you felt would have lasted long in the face of your curiosity." Hal blushed and Fen'Harel's smile broadened even as it softened. "You never expected me to be anything but your equal, your friend, your comrade-in-arms. It is the same way you treat everyone. Merrill, on the other hand, seems to have decided that I am her elder, which of course I am. So I have chosen to behave accordingly." He hesitated and then confessed, "I expect she could use the guidance and it will be worthwhile practice for my future relations with the Dalish."

Hal fell quiet then, mulling over Fen'Harel's reasoning and finding her question satisfied. But he was not willing to let her tangent divert him from his task. "Are you going to answer me?"

She made another face, one that involved making her eyes bigger and looking pleadingly at her Wolf. "Must I?"

He placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth. "You must, ma lath. Do you know that your mother did not want to leave you?"

The sigh that Hal let out was defeated and unhappy. "Yes, I know," she mumbled, and then her chest clenched and her heartbeat spiked and she closed her eyes against a new wave of tears. "Please don't ask me about my father."


	21. Chapter 21

Fen'Harel sighed in echo of Hal's, but his was hurt and worry, and all for her. He shifted closer to her until their bodies were resting lightly against one another and pulled the arm behind her head a little more tightly to him so he could easily place a kiss on each of her eyelids. Then her nose. Her lips. Her lips. Her lips.

She responded in kind, much more willing to use her mouth for affection than for talking about all the people who had found her unworthy of their time and love and resources. When Fen'Harel pulled away, her cheeks bore the trails of salt water like vallaslin, and he kissed those too. It was only then that she felt ready to open her eyes, to give him a much more vulnerable look at her pain so he might reconsider his questions. His eyes were full of his dismay at her unhappiness and he nodded his capitulation. "That is where it begins then, with him," he said mostly to himself. His storm-hued eyes focused on hers. "Vhenan, do you worry I will leave you again?"

Guilt swept through her like a flood and she turned her gaze to the canopy of her bed rather than face Fen'Harel with her doubt and mistrust. Tears spilled more frequently, sliding down her chin and wetting her neck, overflow from the tempest of fears raging inside her. It was more answer than he needed, apparently, because he winced as if she'd struck him and pulled away from her, sitting up and pushing the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Oh, Hal'lasean, ir abelas. I cannot tell you how much. There is no word for it even in Elvhen." He finally looked down at her tormented expression and leaned over her so that she could not avoid but see his sincerity. "What can I do, ma uthlath, to convince you that I am done running?"

Hal wanted desperately in that moment to close her eyes or look away, to not have to think anymore about the one she loved more than anything vanishing without a trace yet again. She was not aware that her lips were shaping words until she had already spoken them, until it was too late to take them back. "If I were not pregnant, would you still stay?"

His face colored a harsh red, making the freckles she loved all but disappear. His brow dropped hard over his flashing eyes and his expression turned furious then wounded then guilty then furious again. Hal watched him wrestling actively with his pride, trying to convince himself that he did not have the right to be insulted by a question he had done everything to deserve. In the end, his dignity won out over his pride, his love over his dignity, but there was an undeniable edge to his voice when he demanded, "Is that what you think?!"

A pitiful sound ripped from Hal's throat, as if she'd had the air knocked out of her. Not that she had much air in the first place. Her face was burning with embarrassment that the heat of her tears did nothing to abate. 

" _Hal'la_ ," Fen'Harel snapped, his voice quaking even over the simple cadence of her name. " _Please_ , you  _must_ answer me!"

When the pressure in her chest was too great and it felt abruptly like he was trapping her to her bed, she shoved him hard in the chest with both hands. He fell back and moved off the mattress entirely, his eyes damp and his jaw slack with his shock and horror. She scrambled up and off the side of the bed like the covers were full of broken glass, moving as far away from the man she loved as she possibly could get without leaving entirely. She couldn't breathe. She was wheezing hysterically, gasping for air with her hands at the base of her throat, and suddenly she was sobbing, sharp, angry, despairing sounds that tore her vocal cords raw and had her back spasming painfully.

"Hal'la," Fen'Harel repeated again, helplessly, and then he was in motion, reaching for her gingerly so she could run if she needed. But she didn't want to run. She didn't want to leave him or lose him or feel like this or doubt him or herself. She didn't want to feel any of this. She wanted to be in his arms, making love with him outside the Fade for the first time in a month, laughing with him, enjoying him while she still had him here. She wanted to  _breathe_ , for fuck's sake! So she went with him when he led her with his energy more than his touch to the her favorite armchair by the fire, and when she was sitting in it, he lifted her arms above her head and folded them over her hair. She left them there as he went to her vanity and poured a glass of water that he chilled with frost magic and brought to her lips, tipping gently.

"Drink, vhenan," he begged, and she could see how visibly he was beating himself up inside for setting off whatever this fit was. She took in a few sips and then shook her head. He put the glass aside and folded himself before her as though supplicating at an altar. Fen'Harel pressed his weight gently through his palms on her feet, grounding her, and as he did he washed his magic through her, insistent and slow like the life of an Elvhen, cooling, calming, soothing as best he could. After five minutes of this attention, when her cries finally quieted and her breath was not quite so ragged, he dropped his forehead against her knees and let out an audible exhale of relief.

It was not until a several long moments later, when she was still crying but slow and silent, that she dropped her hands below her head and draped one over the smooth skin of Fen'Harel's head. He seemed to take it as a sign because he pulled her legs apart and buried his face in her lap, holding tightly to her thighs. She closed her eyes and let her head drop back, moving her fingers with exhausted love over his scalp.

"Tell me, please, ma sa'lath, which is the given name that speaks to your heart."

Hal said nothing for a while, in part because her mind was eerily still in the wake of her panic, and because she truly was not sure anymore who she was. "I don't know," she admitted hoarsely. 

Fen'Harel nodded twice against her lap, moving her shift with his cheek, and pulled himself back, sat up straight with his shoulders squared, and lifted his brows in hopeful, fragile question. "Look at me," he requested, and she did, turquoise eyes joining with grey-blue. He took both her hands in his and pressed his lips to the pulse points of her wrists before settling her palms against the skin of his chest just above his thumping heart. "I would bind my spirit to yours," he declared with only his certainty equal to his solemnity. "You, Tamalin of Clan Alerion, Hal'lasean of Clan Lavellan, you alone who could ever tame the Dread Wolf. I would be bound to you into eternity in front of all three of your families, if that is your wish, or here and now, with only the walls to witness. I would have you and give myself to you in return, everything I have been, everything I am, everything I will ever be, I would bind to you. Not because you carry my child, not because I want you to be beyond doubt that I will leave you only at your command, but because I have never and will never love another. Because you are more precious to me than even Elvhenan. Because when I am not with you, I ache for you, because you have shaped me into the man I have always wanted to be. Because it is my dearest wish to be joined with you in all ways. I would bear your mark upon my soul so that when you have gone to the Beyond, there will never be any question as to whom I love. Now and for all of my tomorrows. If you will have me."

Hal had no need for hesitation. Her heart cried out for his. Her smile was slow and pleased and certain. "May the Dread Wolf take me."

And Fen'Harel laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feeling a little iffy on this chapter. May need to expound or change it up a bit. Feedback is totes welcome and encouraged as always.


	22. Chapter 22

Varric led the way through Skyhold from the Inquisitor's high tower quarters to the posh suite that Hal had been absolutely tickled to give to Hawke and Fenris rather than some trifling -- as she said -- "Duke Asshat the Ninth of the Exalted Plains Asshats, Lord of Stolen Elven Lands". The two of them had gleefully made their case until Josephine relented, enjoying her stammered protests and countering her every argument with a list of perfectly valid reasons why they were right. And they were right. But they also were delighted to be able to decline a request from that very same Duke Asshat on the grounds that they currently did not have the room to house him in the manner to which he was accustomed. Perhaps he would like to come in a few months. When the roads were nigh impassable with ice and snow and no Orlesian noble in their right dainty mind would make the trip into the mountains.

Besides, Hal had told him with one of those very sincere smiles she used that made more cynical men than he drop a knee and pledge themselves to her service, Varric was her clan now, so his friends were hers, and anyone he considered family she would too. It wasn't an extraordinary thing for her to say; she had said as much before to all of her inner circle. She was always saying things like that, and if it had been anyone else, he might have dismissed it as lip service or flowery courtesy. But Hal always meant it when she said those kinds of things.

Which made it all the more distressing to see her so undone.

The moment they were inside Hawke's rooms with the door shut behind them, Varric turned to Merrill expectantly. "All right, Daisy, I'm gonna need you to tell me everything you know about baby Hal."

Fenris had already collapsed into the nearest chair and Hawke went predictably straight for the alcohol. She lifted a brow at Varric as she unstoppered a decanter. "What happened to 'it's not my story to tell'?"

"Doesn't apply here," Varric insisted without hesitation. He moved to Hawke's side to help set up four glasses and to be on hand to carry two of them when she had them filled. "If it happened to Hal, I know about it or I will know soon enough. But she's clearly torn up about whatever happened, so there's no way I'm gonna ask her to tell me herself."

Hawke's brows climbed her forehead as she looked at him and then away, and he knew the expression well enough. She very rarely didn't just speak her mind, no matter what the consequences, so her silence was pointed. She was  _not commenting_ on something he'd said as a statement. But of course her self-control was never the best, and she couldn't hold her tongue for long. "I knew you guys were close, but I didn't realize you were tell-each-other-everything close." There was, unless Varric was missing his mark entirely, a hint of jealousy in her tone that took him completely by surprise. He frowned first at her and then at the other two, and while Fenris mostly seemed to be interested in getting his booze, Merrill's uncertainty as she sat cross-legged by the fire spoke volumes. She was waiting for his response too.

"Hawke, come on," he chided, hoping there was enough playfulness in his expression to hide his incredulity. "You guys are my family just as much as she is. I'm not saying I've told  _her_ everything," although she was one of the few people he knew who had met Bianca, "just that she doesn't--"

"Keep secrets this high up in the Inquisition," Hawke interrupted with a roll of her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I heard. It's fine, Varric." And then she smirked at him and he knew they were okay, which took quite a bit of weight off his chest. But not all of it. He was still pretty worried about Hal. When Hawke spoke again, it was light and teasing. "I mean, what's six years of constant companionship and adventuring when compared with a whole, what,  _two_ years here with the famed Herald of Andraste? Even a dwarf can't be expected not to worship at the feet of a prophetess."

"I do  _not_ worship her," Varric retorted, his cheeks heating, and when Hawke finished pouring the drinks, he was only too glad to take two glasses and turn away so she couldn't see it. He gave one to Merrill and sipped at the other to give him time to work through his embarrassment. Because it wasn't entirely untrue and he knew it. "I mean, I might have thought, you know, for the briefest of moments that she... _was_ chosen by Andraste..." Fenris snorted and Varric made a rude gesture with his hand. "You weren't there after Haven, all right! It was an actual miracle that she survived. But you were in the Fade with her, Hawke; you know as well as I do it was the Divine Justinia who saved her. And I'm not qualified to make guesses as to whether or not the Maker's hand was involved in some other capacity." He crinkled his brow at his drink as he nursed it. "If the Maker even has hands." He waved the thought away. "She's just impressive.  _Really_ impressive. We stumbled all over ourselves in Kirkwall and sometimes we made it better for a while and sometimes we made it much, much worse. We did the best we could with what we had, but we were always flying by the seat of our pants. Hal just...she's one of those people who makes it look easy." He couldn't help his smile when Hawke settled herself on the arm of Fenris' chair and the elf pulled her down into his lap. Hawke's pleasant surprise was good to see. Hal might be hurting this very moment, but he had no doubts she would come out on top of whatever it was. Hawke on the other hand, just hadn't been the same since...well, since plunging her dagger into Anders' trusting back. "Anyway, the no secrets thing is as much about policy as it is about friendship. Especially after we found out about Blackwall."

Hawke knocked back her drink and set it on the end table by the chair she was sharing with Fenris. "Varric, really, it's okay. You don't have to defend her. I've seen her in action. It's not exactly hard to figure out why the Inquisition is doing so well with her at the helm." She cleared her throat and looked down at her legs, suddenly fascinated in the fabric covering her knees. "I just miss my best friend is all."

Varric's heart warmed in time with the blooming of his smile. If it had been Hal, he'd have hugged her or kissed her forehead. That's just what you did with her. But his companions in Kirkwall had never been particularly touchy-feely types. Truthfully he wasn't much for it either unless Hal was involved. So instead he clapped her on the shoulder and poured her another drink. That's how his friendship with Hawke worked. "You can always stay a little longer, you know," he offered hopefully. The plan had been for him to leave when they did, to finally return to the Free Marches to help rebuild his city, but Hawke wasn't going back with him. This was their only time together for the foreseeable future. "I'm in no rush to leave and it wouldn't hurt you to keep a roof over your head for a while. It'd be nice to actually catch up."

"I was going to suggest that as well," Fenris added quietly, his expression turning foul when Hawke's became smug. "What do you want to hear, that you were right?" She beamed obnoxiously and the elf rolled his eyes. " _Fine_ , you were right. Happy?" Hawke's smile grew. Fenris let out a noise of disgust that made everyone else laugh. "The Inquisitor has some interesting plans for the slaves in Tevinter and she wants me to play a part. The very least I can do is hear her out." _  
_

Merrill spoke for the first time since they left Hal's quarters, her lilting accent light and shy. "I'd like to stay as well. I want to...get to know her a bit better and even if she weren't...well, my  _cousin_ , she and her Fadewalker have knowledge about Elvhenan that no other living elves know!"

"Well," said Hawke with a shrug. "Since I can't get Bethany away from that Fiona woman, looks like no matter which way I vote we're staying." She twisted around to face Fenris more seriously, running fingers through his white hair. "But that means you're going to have to figure out how to be in the same room with Dorian Pavus with enough civility that Varric and Hal and I won't have to mediate. Are you up for that?"

Fenris didn't look particularly thrilled about it, but one corner of his lips twitched upward in a hinted smirk. "If the Inquisitor seems like she can actually deliver on her plans for Tevinter, I think I can avoid killing him for a little longer." Something mischievous flashed in Hawke's eyes and Fenris' smirk grew. "Yes, I know, I am too magnanimous. Besides, _she_ says he wants to free Tevinter's slaves as well."

Varric had never seen them so openly affectionate. They were hardly a model couple. They never even really said they were together. It was an unspoken truth. And it had been hard for them, between Fenris' whole sex-begets-memory agony and then Anders blowing up the Chantry and Hawke dealing with literally stabbing the mage in the back before siding with the mages against the Templars and then Fenris leaving until, really, the last possible second...it had taken them a long, long time to rebuild. But whatever was happening now seemed to be working so well they were progressing past where they were even before everything exploded. Literally exploded. Hawke was a very literal woman. And now that she was staying, it meant that Varric got more time to actually pry from her just how she was doing. The real answer. Not the one she probably gave Bethany and Merrill. 

"He does," Varric assured Fenris seriously. Because oh, his life would go so much more smoothly for his remaining time at Skyhold if he didn't have to worry about two of his good friends killing each other. "He can't help being born a Tevinter noble and he's still learning about how the other half lives, but he's got a good heart and he's loyal to Hal." He pursed his lips and sipped at his drink before turning his attention back to Merrill. "Speaking of which...you ready to tell us the whole story there, Daisy?"

"Why don't you ask her bald apostate lover," countered Fenris flatly.

Varric grinned rakishly, in part because he knew it would make Fenris scowl. And it did. "Aw, do the grumpy elves not like each other? It's not a competition, Broody, you're both pretty and equally insufferable."

"He's not an apostate," Merrill murmured before the other elf could retort.

Fenris scoffed dismissively. "Just because the Circles have been disbanded doesn't mean he's not--"

"He's older than the Circles! He can't be an apostate!" The Dalish girl was leaning forward now, her expression suddenly weighted and serious. And Varric dropped his face into his palm with a groan. Because this really, really wasn't what he wanted to talk about. Maybe ever. And Hal probably didn't want everyone finding out like this. Although he had warned her that anything she told Merrill would be told to the rest of the party. So maybe Hal had known. Maybe this was Hal's plan. 

Fenris and Hawke exchanged a look of alarm and puzzlement -- though the alarm was more on the elf's part -- then quickly returned their incredulous faces back to Merrill. "... _What_?" asked Hawke. And then the two lovers were looking at him for answers instead. Dammit. Dammit, Solas! Why was everything always so complicated?

"It's...a long story," Varric groused into his hand before pulling it slowly down his face to drop into his lap. He knocked back the entire rest of his drink then, and while he was swallowing, Merrill jumped back in.

"Hal'lasean said he's an Elvhen!" When neither Fenris nor Hawke seemed to understand what was significant about that revelation, Merrill sighed and began gesticulating with her hands animatedly as she spoke. "The Elvhen were the ancient elves in Elvhenan! In Arlathan! The immortal ones who ruled Thedas before the invasion of Tevinter!"

"That cannot be true," Fenris snarled. "That is impossible."

"But that would make him..." Hawke hesitated as she tried to calculate just how old the bald elf really was. But Hawke never did have much of a head for numbers. That had always been Varric's job. 

"Thousands of years old," Varric sighed, rubbing at his temple. He went back to refill his glass because this was going to require more alcohol. Oh yes. Much more alcohol. "At minimum. He hasn't really given us an exact number."

"So it's true?!" Merrill gasped, her exaggerated eyes a mixture of fear and amazement.

Varric left his glass on the bar and came back to his seat with the whole decanter. He was just going to drink straight out of the bottle. "Oh, it's true, all right. I told you, this girl is a magnet for the weirdest shit I've ever seen."

"How do you know?" Fenris demanded, his fists clenching. Hawke's face was a comical contortion of concentration as she groped with how to make sense of what she was hearing. "Did he prove this?"

"Well, sorta," Varric sighed, and took a long swig. "I mean, he offered to prove it if we needed him to, but Mythal told Hal and he's not exactly the first Elvhen we've run across, so--"

" _Mythal_?!" And now Merrill was on her feet, jaw hanging wide, shaking her hands as she began to pace. 

 _Shit_. This was why he hated talking about this! He should have kept his damn mouth shut. "Yeah, well, she drank from this Well of Sorrows at Mythal's Temple, see, and then she  _met_ Mythal after so she could tame Mythal's dragon to help us defeat Corypheus' dragon, which went really well all things considered but then a while later when Mythal was killed--"

Merrill actually shrieked. And loudly. Her hands clapped over her mouth and there were tears in her eyes. " _Mythal_ was  _killed_?! Oh, Creators, was it the Dread Wolf?!"

Varric tipped the decanter nearly upside down with the opening against his lips and didn't stop drinking until there was nothing left in it but air.

"You should really be hearing this from Hal," he said apologetically, cringing as he wiped his mouth.

"Wait," Hawke demanded, finally catching up. "So Hal is pregnant with the kid of an  _immortal_ , thousands of years old elf?!"

"See what I mean? Weird shit."


	23. Chapter 23

"Fasta vass," Fenris grouched, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. "Hasn't there been enough crying for one day, Merrill?"

"I'm sorry!" Merrill sobbed. "But the All-Mother...!"

Hawke punched Fenris in the shoulder and gave him a very pointed look. "Hey. Every time  _you_ find out something about your life isn't what you thought or you remember something from your past, you spend the next several days baring your teeth at everyone and running away. I think we can cut Merrill and Hal a little slack today." Fenris' eyes narrowed at the woman on his lap, but he said nothing in response. He just rubbed petulantly at the place she'd hit with her fist. "You cry all you want, Merrill."

Varric felt completely useless. He had no alcohol left in the bottle and not nearly enough in his blood now that he'd accidentally made sunny Merrill burst into uncontrollable tears. He loathed seeing the people he loved in pain and so far today there'd been two! And it wasn't even lunchtime! Plus one of them was entirely his fault. Nothing he said was coming across the way he wanted and he kept letting things slip. And he barely understood this whole elven god thing anyway, so he was hardly the person to be talking Merrill through this. But Hal was upset and deserved her privacy, so they were stuck.

"Hey, hey, Daisy, come on, I misspoke. I didn't mean that she was  _killed_ , she..." How had Fen'Harel and Hal put it? "She was possessing a mortal body here for centuries and she gave her power to someone who needed it and went to...another plane, I guess? I don't know, I didn't really understand that part. It involved so much about the Fade that I couldn't wrap my head around it."

" _Possessing_?!" hissed Fenris and Varric got up to search the bar for something stronger. He found it tucked away underneath, a little half bottle of something that looked suspiciously like moonshine. But whatever, he'd take it. 

"That's...she's not a  _demon_ , Fenris, it's all...Maker, it's so much more complicated than any of us could have thought. The Fade is..." He shook his head and rubbed at his temple. "I don't know, I'm a dwarf! You'll have to ask Chuckles or Hal! Or Sparkler, maybe Sparkler--" Wait, who was he talking to? Shit! "I mean, probably  _you_ shouldn't talk to Sparkler, that'd be a disaster. I just mean that they're the ones who seem to understand the complexity of these things." 

Despite the emotional chaos around her -- or perhaps because of it, knowing her -- Hawke was watching Varric with an amused smirk. "Didn't you mention wanting to write a book about all this? How are you going to do that when you don't even understand it?"

He gave her a flat look in response. "This stuff isn't for the book. The book is just going to be the whole Corypheus thing, plain and simple. Mythal will make an appearance because of the Well of Sorrows, but I will definitely  _not_ be going into detail. I mean, I don't want to start a damn panic!" He paused and added, "Not another one anyway."

" _We_ didn't start the last one," Fenris growled and then everything in the room went very still except for Merrill, weeping into her hands on the floor before the fire. Because Varric and Hawke knew exactly who had started the last one. They all did. Anders. Justice. Whoever he had been in the end. And you just didn't bring Anders up around Hawke these days. You couldn't. She would go pale and withdraw into herself and sort of check out until you specifically called her name. Sometimes more than once. Varric could see her doing it now, see her replaying his murder -- his  _death_ \-- over and over in her mind. 

"Andraste's ass, Broody, now look what you've done." 

But Fenris was already aware of it. He'd winced the second he'd said the words and watched Hawke fold in on herself with guilt as clearly written on him as his tattoos. Varric let out a sigh and opened the bottle of alcohol in his hand, tipping it back for a swig. Not even noon and he was already getting smashed, something he had managed not to do since they'd moved the Inquisition to Skyhold. Well, since maybe after the first week. Well, okay, and then that particularly debauched celebration after Corypheus was dead.

"Hawke," Fenris murmured in apology, his voice rough as always. "It's not your fault."

Hawke found her feet quickly after that, holding out an arm to keep Fenris at a distance and moving without really looking where she was going to Varric, from whom she snatched the bottle so hard it sloshed. When she tilted it back, a little of it dribbled down the corner of her mouth, and she wiped it away with her sleeve. Fenris actually looked despondent. 

 _I guess I really don't need to pry to find out how she's doing_ , Varric thought grimly.  _Because_ this _is how she's doing._

"We are really putting our feet in it today, aren't we, Broody," the dwarf grumbled, trying not to miss his booze bottle too too much. "Daisy, Hawke, come on, it's...we're both sorry. We're idiots. Daisy, things aren't as scary as I made them sound. I know Hal wants to tell you everything, so if you just let her put herself back together..." He let out a sharp, audible exhale. "You know what? It's fine. She's a mess, Daisy's a mess, Hawke's a mess, Broody is  _always_  a mess. I'm  _about_ to be a mess once I try to stand up. Let's just call this day the shit show that it is and do whatever we gotta do to get through it." He lifted his brows at his best friend, the woman scowling at her own memories with the spiked swill clutched in one hand. "Hawke, whaddaya say? Wanna get shitfaced and pretend we don't feel things? Daisy? Broody? Tiny's got this Qunari drink that will give you all the same glorious chest hair as ol' Varric."

Hawke was with it enough to spare him a sidelong frown, but he could see she was thinking about it. When she spoke, it was her usual bravado, but it was so soft and dark that Varric's heart clenched.

"Promise we won't feel things?"

Varric forced a thin, sympathetic smile. "We're sure gonna try, Hawke."

 

~~~

 

They sent for a simple breakfast, just bread and fruit with tea for Hal. They didn't make love, even though it would be quite possibly their only time in the flesh together until the birth of their child or the arrival of Clan Lavellan -- whichever came first -- not because they didn't want to (they almost always did), but because Hal was exhausted and hurting and rather than reach for a pleasurable distraction, Fen'Harel was trying to encourage her to sit with her grief. So once their food was delivered and they'd eaten enough to sustain them until lunch, he sat on the floor before the fire with his back against one of the armchairs and she laid between his legs with her head on his lap. He unbraided her hair and ran his fingers through it, petting and caressing and drifting loving touches over the tops of her ears. She stared into the flames and worked on deepening her breath and allowed him to comfort her. Sometimes tears slid down her cheeks and onto his breeches, but mostly she watched the fire and let her thoughts wander and time pass unnoticed. 

It was Fen'Harel who finally broke the tranquility of her suffering, and though she didn't look up to see his face, she could hear in his voice the way his brow pulled low over his eyes in thoughtful concern. "I was born Fen'Hellan," he spoke softly, and it was such a rare thing for him to speak openly about his past that she rolled onto her back to look up at him. He cringed slightly and adjusted himself beneath her head and she ghosted a smile in apology. "I did not earn the name Fen'Harel until I was a young man. It was expected that nobility would serve as officers in the military because in my lifetime we were always at war with the Others." He frowned a little and clarified, "You know them as the Forgotten Ones. They too have had many names. To serve was a duty and an honor. It was also the way in which one earned recognition. I was a skilled tactician and I rose quickly in the ranks. Very quickly." Fen'Harel paused and glanced down at Hal, his lips quirking upward as he smoothed silver hair from her forehead. "Quickly for the Elvhen, that is. I felt the rules did not apply to me and I was so excellent at games of war, at all of Elvhenan's Games, that I was allowed to get away with it. Fen'Harel was a joke at first. Tricky Wolf. Then Dread. It did not mean Rebel until I turned against the pantheon." His gaze had unfocused, though it was resting on Hal's features, and she watched him with silent fascination as he remembered. "But I get ahead of myself." Fen'Harel drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, nearly on voice, as though he were preparing himself for something unpleasant. "It was our highest honor to be called to the pantheon. It is what every elf of breeding strived to achieve. Very few ever succeeded, though there were more than your people recall. The Others were all once members.  
  
It is so rare because it is an excruciating and dangerous process, so only the most powerful of us could survive with our sanity. When an elf is chosen to ascend, they are given a new name, usually by the All-Mother and All-Father -- or, in my case, The People have already renamed them -- and the entire pantheon attends a ritual that sends that chosen elf into the Beyond and the Void." Hal let out a horrified gasp and he smiled soothingly, stroking her cheek. "It is a test of soul, will, and magic. Those who survive can only do so by joining themselves inseparably with a powerful kind of spirit that exists only in the farthest recesses of those places from which no mortal can ever return. They are attracted to the elf if he or she can reach so far, summoned by the light of their life, the pull of the physical world. Many gather. Then the elf must choose one that will become a part of him and he a part of it. Their powers, their strengths and weaknesses will be shared for eternity. The spirit I chose might best be described as a Spirit of Purpose, but even then to label it such would be to do this particular variety of spirit a disservice. They are complex creatures, in some ways just as we are. Beautiful, pure spirits with facets like gems in sunlight. I became this spirit and it became me. My power grew exponentially. I call him the Wolf." For just a moment, Fen'Harel let the beast inside him that Hal knew and loved so well flash in his steel blue eyes, let it give her a predatory half-smile. And then it was gone and there was only Fen'Harel, petting her, loving her, trusting her with his story. "I believe you've met." When she smiled, he traced the line of her lips with a fingertip.

"When I returned and the ritual was completed, when I was officially a member of the pantheon, I could not control it. I was young and impulsive myself, as Elvhen go, and the Wolf's call, his need for the hunt, to race through nature and the Fade, to explore and rut and kill...it was overwhelming. I lost myself for some time. Centuries." His gaze darkened and his lips twisted. "I am not proud of the things I did during that time. When the Wolf has no purpose, he seeks experience and thrill. I am ashamed to admit that I was neither strong enough nor did I particularly wish to contain him. It was during this time..." He swallowed and flushed, meeting Hal's eyes with guilt and apology. "It was during this time that I warmed Andruil's bed."

Hal felt her stomach drop, her heart skip a beat. Her skin paled even as her ears heated and her lips parted in shocked pain. She had seen Mythal, more beautiful than anyone else she had ever seen, more beautiful than it was possible to imagine, and Andruil was her daughter. She had assumed Fen'Harel had known other women -- he had been worshipped as a god and he was handsome, of course he had known other women. Immortal women, Elvhen women who were taller than she, probably with wide hips and full breasts, experienced mages with all the time in the world for honing their bedroom arts. And they would have wanted so badly to please a member of the pantheon. She had assumed these things, had heard him affirm as much, though vaguely, but never had they actually discussed it. And now to know he had bedded the Huntress, the daughter of the exquisite Mythal...

"Hal'lasean," Fen'Harel murmured, and he bent over her to kiss her lips upside-down. "Vhenan. Only you have ever had my heart. Do not waste your worries on Andruil." This time when he said her name, it was tainted with disdain. "She ascended by birth, not by deed. She was cruelty and arrogance personified. She had desired me for some time and I had refused, but the Wolf needed..." He shook his head with self-disgust. "She was beautiful and willing and she loved the hunt as the Wolf did. But she is a shadow compared to your bright star, ma lath. Her beauty is nothing beside yours." When she looked unconvinced, he smiled down at her. "Do you not believe me?"

"I believe," Hal decided after a moment's consideration, "that you are blinded by your love for me. I have seen Mythal, remember? I believe you love me and only me. But I don't believe for a second that somehow I'm more beautiful than a goddess." Her smile slipped across her face. "It was a very sweet effort, though."

Fen'Harel offered her a crooked smirk. "You saw Mythal's spirit, Hal'la. You saw what remains of her, what will travel to the Beyond. It is a truly extraordinary spirit, bright and fantastic, but it is not how she looked when she truly lived. What you saw was, in some sense, her godhead, if such a thing exists. I assure you, on my honor, I have never seen a woman so beautiful as you."

Despite herself, Hal turned a pretty pink and gave a shy, stupidly pleased smile. When Fen'Harel returned it, she reached for the hand he had rested on her ribs to intertwine their fingers. "I think you're full of shit, Dread Wolf, but I can't say I don't like it."

He laughed and kissed her again before finally settling back against the armchair that was his spine's support. "You shall see one day. And on that day, oh, how I will gloat." They were both smiling to themselves when they fell quiet again, and it was a few moments before Fen'Harel continued. "I am telling you these things, Hal'la, because I want you to know that I understand what it is to not know who you are. But the Wolf and I found our purpose and so found ourselves. I know you will find your way with much more grace than I did."

Again they lapsed into silence, but this time when it had stretched on a while, it was Hal who interrupted their thoughts. "I want to find my sister," she declared softly. "If Lanaya lives, I want to find her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Vhenan" - (my) heart  
> "Ma lath" - "my love"


	24. Chapter 24

Fen'Harel had advised Hal to rest a little longer, but once she'd decided what her next step was, wallowing in her confusion and pain was no longer an option. Even if it was the healthier choice, they both knew she had never been one to mope if there was work to be done.

So they had chosen to divide and conquer. He was to meet with Cassandra and Josephine (Cullen was still out on leave) to make progress reports and discuss his next steps, what they needed from him, and, most importantly, to explain what was happening to Hal so that she wouldn't have to. He was to get the advisors on the job of finding Lanaya in all the legitimate channels.

Hal's work was to send out messages to her inherited spy network. And then, once she had finished writing all those letters, sending all those ravens, she had the unfortunate task of asking help of the one person in the Inquisition she most preferred to avoid.

And that's how she ended up grimacing inwardly in Sera's round room in the tavern, wishing there was any other way to access the blonde's loose network of cohorts. Wishing she were anywhere else. Surrounded by Red Templars. Hanging onto the back of a dragon in heat. Under the feet of a druffalo stampede. Listening to Vivienne lecture her on the Dalish and the Circle. Cuddling a nest of giant spiders. Literally anything else. Anything but this.

"I know what's wrong with you," Sera sang triumphantly, and it took everything Hal had to smile pleasantly.

"That'd be quite a list," she replied glibly. "Did you want to be more specific."

Sera laughed. "I been thinkin', yeah? 'Bout why it is you suddenly stopped gettin' shitefaced with us! And I figured it out!" 

_Fenedhis. Today of all days? Really?_

"I've decided to try abstinenance?" Hal offered hopefully.

The blonde's face wrinkled in confusion. "If that means you've got a elfy-elf bun in the oven--"

Hal darted for the door, slamming it closed in alarm. She really should have seen Sera's inability and unwillingness to control her volume coming. She should have closed the door when she came in, when Sera mentioned her refusal to drink. She also should have realized that practically tackling the door in a panic would confirm Sera's suspicions. Today was really not her day.

When she returned to her window seat, face red with humiliation, she found the other woman grinning so hard it was almost painful to see.

"I knew it! I fuckin' knew it, yeah! I told everybody at the table after you ran off, I said, 'How much you wanna fuckin' bet that bald elfy arsehole knocked her up!' And they all told me to shut it, but I knew, din't I!" She laughed again, practically crowing now. "Lookit yer dumb face!"

It was times like these that Hal found it helpful to remind herself how very useful Sera's people were. How, should she finally snap after everything Sera had said and done and send her away from Skyhold, she would most likely earn an irritating and far reaching enemy among the very people she most wanted to help. How to send Sera away was ridiculous when she'd saved Blackwall, a coward, liar, and murderer of children, when she'd received Fen'Harel with open legs as though he too hadn't lied about who he was, as if he hadn't broken her heart and abandoned her without saying goodbye. As if he hadn't tried to do it again after he'd come back to save her.

But of course there was one massive difference between those two and Sera, and it wasn't that she physically couldn't stand the other woman. It wasn't her careless disdain for her own people or how she'd cackled gleefully when Hal explained why her face was suddenly without vallaslin. No, it was that Blackwall and Fen'Harel were remorseful. They had made terrible, unforgivable mistakes, but had gladly faced the punishments for their crimes, were working tirelessly to atone as best they could. But Sera had smashed in a man's face while Hal was in mid-conversation with him, when Hal had repeatedly told her to back down, when Hal had been doing her a favor in the first place, when there was useful information still to be gleaned from the man, when she might have punished him by forcing him to help the Inquisition, which may have ultimately saved the lives of the very people Sera purported to fight for. She had beaten his face in ruthlessly, spraying Hal with blood and bone and brain. And then she had the audacity to be angry at Hal for not doing it herself. It was the first and only time any of her people had directly disobeyed an order. And Sera to this day did not see herself as anything but a hero. Had actually tried to convince Hal that her methods were just as inspiring as the Inquisition's attempts to feed and clothe and care for refugees, to bring peace and order, to hold the nobility accountable for their crimes as justly as possible, to stop a madman from turning the entire world into a nightmare. Yes, Sera, Hal had thought darkly, blind, pointless brutality is exactly the same.

That was the day she cut Sera out of her circle. But she hadn't dared send her away. And now Sera stayed because, in her words, it was more fun in Skyhold. Hal wasn't an idiot; she knew there must be more to Sera than apathy and violence. That the things she declared she detested most were perhaps the things she desired but were denied her all her life. And maybe one day, if she grew up a little and admitted to what she'd done, Hal would help her learn. Hal also was more than aware that her feelings about the other elf were probably a little arrogant on her part. But she was the head of the Inquisition and for now she had more important things to do than try to reach someone who rebuked her every attempt. So their relationship remained strained but reciprocal. A favor for a favor. And here she was, asking for a favor. A dangerous proposition.

"Sera," Hal began carefully when she felt she could trust herself not to shout, "please keep this to yourself. People will find out eventually and I'll even let you yell it from the battlements when it's time if it makes you happy, but we're not quite ready yet for all of Thedas to know the Herald of Andraste is an unwed mother." Was that the term Josie had used?

"I get it, yeah," said Sera, so reasonably that Hal momentarily wondered if she was dreaming, "'specially can't have everyone knowin' the 'Quizzie's gonna be poppin' out the bleedin' elfiest brat there ever was!" Her eyes narrowed suddenly. "'Less it's gonna be a tow-headed halfbreed!"

Hal flushed and cleared her throat, which Sera loved. "No," she assured her firmly, "it'll be the elfiest."

Something dark and sad passed across Sera's face then, and Hal's dislike faltered. She never could leave someone in pain, no matter what their past. 

"Boy elf or girl elf?" Sera wondered, pretending badly that she didn't care.

"We don't know yet," Hal admitted. "It's very early still."

Sera nodded thoughtfully and Hal's ire diminished again. Dammit. "Yer keepin' the li'l blighter?"

"Of course," she replied without hesitation. "Of course we are."

Sera nodded again, slowly this time, and then forced herself to grin. "Guess we'd better get ready for barefoot elf spawn runnin' around!" She hesitated and added, as flippantly as she could, "Well, if y'ever need someone what sits on the pipsqueak..."

Hal's first thought was that she would find literally anyone else. That she'd trust Dagna in the Undercroft with her mind on her work with her child before Sera. But there was something sweet about the offer, so instead she said, "Thanks." And Sera actually smiled. Not grinned, not smirked, not sneered, but smiled. Maybe she wasn't such a lost cause after all.

"All right then, fat arse, let's hear what you want."

Ugh.

"I need to find someone," Hal admitted frankly. There was no point in skirting around anything with Sera. "My sister." Sera's eyes widened, but Hal stubbornly kept going to avoid any awkward questions. "I haven't seen her since I was a child, so I have no idea where she might be now or what she might be doing. But she'd look like me -- same coloring, same eyes, same hair. Her name was Lanaya Alerion then, but it could be anything now. I last saw her in the Free Marches. She was eight or nine then I think? So she must be...early to mid thirties by now. And she's a mage." She sighed and racked her brain for any other information she might give. "She may or may not have vallaslin. She could have ended up anywhere. She may have found another Dalish clan, but I doubt it. It's probable she was picked up by Templars and ended up in a Circle somewhere." She let out a long breath and braced herself. "But it's equally as probable that she was taken by slavers and sold to Tevinter." And more than likely that she died. Which was why Hal had also sent an envoy to her Keeper to learn whether or not they'd found the body of a little elf girl in the woods near her parents. The hunters weren't fools. They had to know a toddler couldn't walk to their halla all by herself, would have checked for tracks and followed them. They either found Lanaya's corpse or had some idea of where she'd gone, who'd taken her.

Sera was staring at her like she was absolutely insane. "You want me to find some chickie you ain't seen since you were in nappies based on a name she may or may not use and places she may or may not have been?"

Hal took a breath. "There's a reward in it for you and for anyone who provides information that leads us to her."

The other woman sat back and eyed Hal shrewdly. "I want the reward and I want what you made Bianca. Them arrows with bits o' dreams'r whatever stuck to the tips."

Well. That was easier than Hal had anticipated. She held out her hand to Sera, who shook it sloppily. "One last thing. Nobody can know you're looking for my sister. It'll make her a target. She's just someone we want to find."

"Yeah, yeah, everything's a secret with you. I got it!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Fenedhis" - "wolf dick", a common curse


	25. Chapter 25

"Good morning, my love," Dorian purred into her ear, sweeping her unbound hair off her shoulder so he could kiss her neck. Hal lifted a shoulder at the tickle of his mustache on her skin and promptly turned around to wrap him in a tight, grateful hug right there in front of the infirmary. It was so enthusiastic and public a display of genuine affection (as opposed to the outrageous flirting that he deemed acceptable) that he didn't quite know what to do with himself at first, but eventually he wrapped his big human arms around her and rested his chin comfortably on her hair. "Are you talking yet?"

She breathed in the fancy cologne that was now one of her very favorite scents and let out a long sigh. "Thank you."

He shrugged awkwardly and pulled her away from him by the shoulders so he could get a better look at her. "Yes, well, you owe me. Bull and I were in the best part of trying out that swing we showed you when Varric's little friend Merrill burst in declaring that your damned Wolf needed me to be with you immediately." He let out a heavy, put-upon sigh. "The things I do for love. You owe me an entire night of kinky, drunken orgasms." When she grinned, he let one side of his mouth slide up in echo. "You seem better." But what he meant was that he was glad she seemed better. So Hal kissed the tip of his nose and he rolled his eyes and wiped at the affected skin as though she were contagious. 

"I got worse first." She hesitated then, studying Dorian's familiar, beloved features, considering his place in her life, in her heart, and then even though she had thought not to say anything until things were more finalized, she blurted, "He wants us to be bound." Just the thought made her heart throb and her skin heat. 

But of course Dorian stared at her uncomprehending. Which meant he twisted it into a sex joke because Dorian. "You and I? Well, you know you're not my type, but if he's suggesting some kind of torture scenario with Bull on one side and your--"

"Dorian," Hal interrupted with a flat look that made him laugh. "He wants to bind himself to me." The mage's eyes sparkled merrily. She'd said the wrong thing again. "That's not what I mean and you know it!"

Dorian laughed again, delighted this time, and gave a helpless shrug. "Darling, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"Binding!" reiterated Hal with an edge of frustration in her voice. This was a far cry from the reaction she'd imagined, in which he picked her up and swirled her around and told her how very happy he was for her. How could he not get this? Unless something was getting lost in translation. "...You do know elves don't get married the same way shems do, right?" It was perfectly clear by the dawning realizaction across his tanned face that he had not. She smiled at him as his understanding became shared joy. "We call it binding. The Dalish do it largely symbolically at this point, but the Elvhen..."

"I've read about this!" Dorian gasped excitedly. "It's a ceremony that literally tethers your spirits together! It's terribly romantic." He looked her over thoughtfully with a growing, beaming smile. "We're happy about this? Maker, look at you glowing, of course we are." And though he had only just squirmed at her earnest gratitude, he finally scooped her up with his large, well-manicured hands under her arms, lifting her easily so that he could plant a friendly kiss right on her lips, which she gladly returned. Then he really did spin her, Hal giggling with delight and Dorian laughing at her giggling.

"Heeeeey, Haaaal!" came Varric's exceedingly inebriated greeting from the open door of the tavern. He was apparently headed back to his table with a new pitcher of what Hal could already tell was a slightly less lethal version of the Qunari drink Bull kept stocked. And sure enough, she saw the huge Qun spy toddle drunkenly toward the door as well. The table was not so much an organized group as it was a sprawling mess of wasted Chargers -- all of them -- and the Kirkwall contingent. Hawke was draped on Fenris' lap, both of them murmuring to each other and grinning wickedly, Merrill was pestering Dalish and being pestered by Sera, who must have only just joined them but was somehow already three sheets to the wind. Bethany was flirting brazenly with Krem. And somewhere in the middle of all this were what appeared to be three different abandoned card games. "You're smiling! Thank the bloody Maker!" He and Bull stumbled toward them with the group's refill still in hand, and the moment Dorian set Hal on her feet, Bull lifted Dorian the same way he had just held her. The Tevene turned furiously red, but Bull was too drunk and enjoyed Dorian's embarrassment too much to care.

"Bull, you great oaf! Put me down!" Bull just laughed.

While Hal was busy watching them with a fond, momentarily happy smile, Varric took the opportunity to practically tackle her with a solid dwarven hug that was so tight her back popped and Qunari ale sloshed down her breeches. Varric drew back in sudden alarm and promptly petted her stomach, cringing in apology, totally unaware of his spillage. She had never before seem him quite so drunk. "Sorry, tiny elf! Everybody okay in there?"

Hal went a red a good ten shades brighter than Dorian's and quickly grabbed Varric's hand to pull it away. "Varric!" she hissed. "I know it's the worst kept secret in the Inquisition at this point, but you're not helping!"

Varric blinked up at her stupidly for a moment before grinning. "Oh, yeah, you don't have to worry about that anymore, sweetheart. Sera's been helping the bard write a song about the kid. She insists that the bridge should go 'the elfiest elf, the Inquisitor's whelp'. It's pretty catchy!"

Why? Why why why why why why why? Hal nearly slapped herself, she put her palms on her face so hard, dragging them down as though she could just wipe away her mortified frustration. " _Fuck!_ " she groaned. "Cass and Josie are going to  _kill_ me!"

"Aw, Hal, relax," Varric cooed, returning to pet her stomach in a way he must have believed to be soothing. Okay, so it was a little bit, but not in public! "Uncle Varric isn't gonna let anybody say a cross word about your pretty little bastard."

"Andraste's hoisted knickers, Varric, how much have you had today?!" Dorian demanded. He was on his feet again, but his lips were swollen and he seemed fairly pleased with himself. "It's not even noon!" He feigned injury. "And nobody thought to invite me."

"Fenris is in there," Varric explained, pointing obviously. "And Bull wouldn't let us! He kept insisting you needed your beauty sleep."

"I did  _not_ say 'beauty'," Bull insisted jovially. He turned to cup Dorian's chin with one massive hand. "This man needs no more beauty." Dorian went red again and Varric made a noise of disgust.

"OY!" Sera bellowed from inside. "BRING THE FUCKIN' BOOZE ALREADY, YEAH!"

"Fenedhis lasa, Sera!" Hal snapped back and then instantly regretted it.

"FUHFOOFAHMA CACALA! LOOK AT ME, I SPEAK ELFY TOO!" And then a fist flashed across Sera's face and her head snapped sideways.

"Thanks, Dalish!" the Inquisitor called, and Sera started cackling.

"Haaaal," Varric complained, finally stopping his attentions to the tiny swell of her belly, "Don't be mad at Buttercup. She didn't mean anything by it. She's just excited! Everybody is, really. I mean, I'm getting excited -- I will be Uncle Varric, right? You shoulda heard the cheer that went up when the tavern got word! The Chargers and soldiers started chanting 'Solas! Solas! Solas!' and banging--"

From inside the tavern, apparently reinvigorated by Varric's mention, fists and steins started clacking on wooden tables. "SOLAS! SOLAS! SOLAS! SOLAS!"

"...Do I want to know?" asked Fen'Harel, walking across the courtyard to join them.

"They're congratulating you on your virility!" Bull laughed. 

Fen'Harel's face turned the reddest of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Fenedhis lasa" - "take a wolf dick" (approx.)


	26. Chapter 26

There was no getting anything done with most of the inner circle drunk off their asses in the middle of the day. Hal had planned to take care of quite a bit: she was going to talk to Fenris about her plans for Tevinter, show him maps and the long-term plots and moves for power, she had hoped to talk to her more trusted mages about helping run a school for children with magical abilities, there were things involving the Marches and the Wardens to discuss with Hawke, she wanted to ask Dorian and Fenris (separately, of course) about slave purchasing records in Tevinter to help with the search for her sister, and she was going to try to finish explaining things to Merrill, maybe even introduce her properly to Fen'Harel, if she seemed amenable. That last one was even more plausible now that she had a better understanding of exactly what the pantheon were. It would be infinitely easier to explain that they weren't gods without having to admit she really didn't know what else they could be. Even though she let one of them knock her up.

But no. They were drunk. They were all so drunk that getting anything coherent and worthwhile out of them was nigh impossible. But she would try, perhaps foolishly. She convinced Fen'Harel to go into the tavern with her so that while Dorian downed drink after drink to catch up with the others (Varric assured him Fenris was no longer quite so volatile, so long as they gave each other a wide berth), they could talk to him and maybe have their midday meal. Her Wolf had been hesitant, probably out of embarrassment, but when Hal informed him she had to go in with or without him, he finally acquiesced. Varric led the way, followed by Bull with his arm around Dorian, then Hal almost dragging Fen'Harel by the hand.

The chanting had died out, but the moment the tavern recognized their Inquisitor's lover, the whole place erupted in rowdy, vulgar cheers. And then, much to both Hal and Fen'Harel's chagrin, the bard struck up their song. The song she'd written when Solas had disappeared and added to when he'd returned. The entire Rest took up the melody, and when the couple flushed and tried to retreat, Chargers and companions blocked all their exits. They went through the entire song like this, bumped and clapped on the back by enthusiastic drunks, most of which had at least fought by their sides in the bigger battles or guarded their camps during the long stretches on the road. These were people who had watched their love develop, seen it collapse then resurrect. So when the revelers reached the last dramatically held note of the final verse of the original song and they were preparing to start the sexual addendum, Hal suddenly felt her feet leave the ground. Dorian was holding one of her legs as Krem took the other, and while Fen'Harel was protesting on her behalf, Bull grabbed him by the waist and threw him up on his massive shoulder, only just managing not to impale him on a horn.

"Theeeeey fucked in her tower  
Until it was dawn  
Broke down her bower  
And when that was done

We heard them a-groanin'  
In the stables one day  
He got her a-moanin'  
Right there in the hay!

One night on her throne  
When no one was near  
He stuck his big elf bone  
Right in her rear!

When he finished his picture  
All covered in paint  
He sank in his dick, sure  
His balls on her taint!

When he gets a hard on  
She grabs at his cock  
They can't keep their clothes on  
They fuck 'round the clock!

There's no place in Skyhold  
Where she hasn't been his  
Here's where we've been told  
He's had our Inquiiiiiiz...itoooooor!"

The rest of the song was a call back, where someone would shout a location and everyone would repeat it with uproarious laughter. Hal had heard it a few times before, so she wasn't quite so scandalized and before long she was laughing just as helplessly as when Bull and Dorian had carried her forcibly to the tavern the day that Fen'Harel had gone into the field. Hal had never seen her love so horrified, so absolutely humiliated, so openly aghast as he was being paraded about by a giant Qunari. But by the time they got to 'big elf bone' he was biting back laughter, and though his entire shiny head was a brilliant scarlet, he was eventually offering their closer friends good-natured if beleaguered grins that clearly expressed he thought they were idiots.

Eventually the room ran out of locations they had claimed as theirs, but just as the song was about to die down, Hal shouted, "The Undercroft!"

The room went suddenly silent and then roared in approval, and perhaps it would have ended there if she hadn't lifted her brows in challenge at her Wolf. His eyes went wide and he shook his head, but she was already shouting again: "The War Room!"

Fen'Harel looked like he wanted to kill her or maybe take her right there on the floor in front of everyone, which only made her grin wolfishly at him. And that was all he could take. When it was time for the next suggestion, he cut her off. "Dorian's favorite chair!"

"OOOOOOOOH!" went the room and Dorian started choking in surprise, which only made everyone else laugh harder. The drunken soldiers and Chargers and friends cheered and chanted and finally let the song end on that particularly high note. They set the two elven lovers on their own feet, and as Dorian found his hands free, he started making rude gestures at Fen'Harel that the elven man found very enjoyable indeed. And then the commotion faded into normal raucous conversation, and for a moment they stood still in the center of the ebbing chaos, Hal cocky and delighted, Fen'Harel's chin tucked and his eyes flashing with the spirit of the beast inside him. When that only made her grin more broadly, he crossed the remaining space between them with confident, lithe steps and took both her hands in his, pulling them down and away from her so she couldn't stop him when he dragged his lips against the skin of her neck and up to the tip of her ear.

"They worship you, Inquisitor," he growled just for her to hear. A shiver went up her spine and she smiled like the cat who caught the canary. It was one thing to hear that title from him when he was using it to distance them. It was quite another when he made it sound like sex. "They love you."

Her cheeks flushed and she caught her bottom lip with her teeth, practically wriggling with pleasure at the animal lust in Fen'Harel's eyes when they finally met her own. " _You_ love me," she countered, feeling particularly saucy and confident. 

Fen'Harel laughed low in his throat, dusting a teasing kiss on her lips. "Tell me something, ma halla," he murmured. "Are you wanted?"

Briefly, so briefly, both their eyes reflected an intensity and depth to their love that was beyond their growing desire for each other's bodies. They were in her room again, curled against each other, whispering about her fears. And then just as quickly as it appeared, it was overtaken by a wave of rough lust. "I am wanted," she purred.

His lips pulled up in a hungry smile. "Who wants you, vhenan? Who is it that wants you more than he has ever wanted anything in his long, lonely life?"

This time she teased him, nipping playfully at his bottom lip. "I am wanted by the mighty Dread Wolf."

Fen'Harel leaned in for a kiss but stopped just short of actual contact so that his breath fell hot against her skin. "Say it again."

Her smile was wicked. "He Who Hunts Alone has only ever wanted me." Her eyes flashed. "And he can have me."

He poured his desire into her mouth, sinking their bodies together and keeping her hands away so that only their lips and tongues could tangle passionately. 

"Better add 'the tavern' to the song!" someone shouted.

Fen'Harel broke the kiss to quirk one aloof, imperious brow. "Too late."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Ma halla" - "my halla"  
> "Vhenan" - (my) heart


	27. Chapter 27

Dorian was sulking. "I cannot believe you fucked on my chair!" His eyes narrowed over his drink at Fen'Harel and then Hal, both of whom were beaming at him. Well, Hal was beaming at him. Fen'Harel had one of his smarmier smirks in play. Still, for him, that was basically beaming. "Do I want to know when? Fasta vass, do I want to know how many times?"

The couple in question exchanged a thoughtful look, as though they were discussing with only their eyes when and how many times the deed had been done, which only made Dorian groan. 

"I have never done anything questionable on your things!" he whined, and when Bull smiled surreptitiously, Hal's face dropped.

"Fenedhis, where?"

"You're not the only lovers who get turned on by a throne." Dorian flushed and downed more of his drink, but Bull just grinned. "Oh, and in the rotunda. A lot. But it was after wolfy here left without a word, so it felt sort of like avenging your honor, Boss!" And then he laughed. "It felt sort of like that, but mostly it felt like---"

"These are the people you want surrounding our child," Fen'Harel reminded Hal dryly. She smiled sweetly in return and reached for his hand under the table. There was food in front of them but only he was eating it. Every time she tried, despite her hunger pangs, she just ended up nauseated.

"Fine, so we're even! Still, you could have at least cleaned up afterward!"

Hal's brows lifted. "You didn't notice a difference, did you? Besides, I very much doubt you two cleaned up after yourselves!"

Dorian sniffed and Bull leaned in, speaking too loudly for he way he was pretending to share a secret. "Actually, he's meticulous about clean up."

The Tevinter mage went from rosy to copper and Fen'Harel was looking awfully amused until Hal nodded her sympathy. "So is mine," she sighed. Fen'Harel choked on his glass of wine. Hal and Bull preened. "Just think, Dorian: our child could very well have been conceived on your favorite seat."

He glared and finished off his mug, only to be diligently refilled by Bull. "Well then, if I had a hand in the conception, it's only fair to name the babe after me!"

" _No_ ," Fen'Harel snapped immediately, at the same time that Hal said, "Maybe!" Now both men were glaring at her and she laughed.

"Varric's a good, strong name!" called the dwarf from the next table. "And Bianca is  _lovely_ for a girl!"

"We're not naming our child after a crossbow, Varric," Hal explained for the millionth time. "Even such a lovely one."

"Bah!" scoffed Varric. "Don't know what's good for ya!"

Suddenly Sera was draping over Bull and their table, reaching for a stray piece of Hal's untouched lunch. Just as she was about to grasp the food, Fen'Harel's hand snaked out and popped her sharply on the back of her wrist.

"Bullocks, ow!" the other elf cried, but the mage was unrepentant. "She weren't eatin' it!"

"She will," Fen'Harel replied coolly. "And as you so blithely informed all of Skyhold, she is eating for two now. Go get your own."

Sera blew a raspberry at him and he let out a sigh as he protected the plates from the spray of her saliva with his hands. "I liked it a shiteton better when you went poof-vanished-into-thin-air!"

"I like it better when you keep your mouth shut," answered Fen'Harel lightly.

"They're just gonna name the poor whelp somethin' all sparkly and elfy and gross!" Sera called behind her as she moved onto mooch off the next available meal. "Like Galalalalalala or Crotchiel or..." It was a great relief to Fen'Harel and the Dalish women present that Sera finally shoved her mouth full of someone else's food.

Maybe that was what finally brought Merrill over: some shared sense of elven outrage or a need for solidarity. Whatever the reason, the little mostly-sober four-top watched her struggle to her feet, steadied by Hawke and Varric, who at this point could boast only slightly better balance. She stumbled and laughed airily, but the moment her gaze locked on Hal like a lifeline, any happiness she might have felt drained away. As she picked her way with great concentrated deliberation across the few feet between them, Hal stole Fen'Harel's glass of red wine and took a very long sip, ignoring the pointed look he gave her as he took it back.

"I rather find elven languages to be soothing and quite melodic," Dorian told no one in particular, simply to fill the sudden tense silence. When nobody responded -- all attention was on little drunken Merrill flopping unceremoniously into the chair between Hal and Bull -- he too partook of a large swallow of booze.

 "Asa'var'lin," Merrill greeted, leaning heavily on the table and giving Hal a comically serious stare.

"Cousin, female," Dorian murmured to Bull, translating without being asked. "But not like lethallan, which is more general. This one means an actual cousin." It wasn't until after he spoke the words that he realized what he'd said and looked to Hal in question. She gave a helpless shrug of affirmation and Dorian spent the next half a minute studying the two Dalish girls side by side, comparing their features.

"Ir abelas about this morning," Hal offered sincerely. She lifted her brows because the inebriated intensity of her new-found kin was making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she was hoping the apology would be all that was wanted. But, oh, was she wrong.

Merrill stabbed a finger accusingly at Hal's chest. "You said no secrets! That's what you said!"

Hal's mouth fell open, on the precipice of saying something, but she could think of no words. Eventually she settled on an awkward and uncertain, "I said there were no secrets this high in the Inquisition."

"But you  _lied_! There  _are_ secrets! Horrible ones! Ones I deserve to know before-- before dwarves and shems and...!" She pointed her finger at Bull. "And Qunari!" Those huge green eyes were brimming with tears and Hal felt guilt twisting in her gut even without knowing what she' done.

"Merrill," Hal began calmly, her brow furrowing as she looked to Fen'Harel and Dorian to see if either of them understood what was happening. Her Wolf had that subtle knitting of his brows that meant he was puzzled and the Tevinter mage was still paying more attention to the admittedly eerie familial resemblance. Hal had never really known what it was to look like someone else and now that it had finally happened, it was vaguely unsettling. She couldn't even imagine how strange it would be if she ever managed to find Lanaya. "Is this about the baby? I didn't mean for everyone to find out yet. I would have told you I was pregnant--"

"By the Dread Wolf!"

For the second time since Merrill had arrived in Skyhold, that one unfortunate phrase had plummeted the inner circle around her into a strained, breathless silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Fenedhis" - "wolf dick", a common curse  
> "Asa'var'lin" - cousin, female  
> "Lethallan" - kin  
> "Ir abelas" - "I am (full of sorrow/sorry)"


	28. Chapter 28

Beneath the table, Hal tightened her grip on Fen'Harel's hand. It was mostly to soothe him as he had gone dangerously still beside her, but it was equally to ground her own spinning mind. How? How had she found out so quickly? Sera didn't know, there was no way fucking loudmouth Sera had any idea about anything so very "elfy" and she trusted her inner circle implicitly. Nobody else knew! Varric, Cullen, Bull, Leliana, Josie, Cassandra, Dorian, Cole. They had made it very clear to all of them that it was paramount to the Inquisition's future and everyone's safety that Fen'Harel's identity remain secret. Especially to Cole. Yes, there were joking wolf references in less-than-private conversations sometimes, but nothing that couldn't be attributed to the wolves in Solas' murals and the jaw bone he wore at all times. Surely Varric hadn't--

Oh.  _Oh._

Because in the mere seconds it had taken Hal's mind to spiral into crisis mode, Merrill had only taken a breath. To prepare to speak more. Because it was not, in fact, that the other elf knew she shared a table with that very same Dread Wolf as she spoke, but rather that she had used that exclamation repeatedly in her time here. Hadn't Hal even warned her about it?

"Any elf with eyes could tell you're quickening! I'm talking about _Mythal_! You  _met_ her!" Merrill continued, oblivious to the panic she had caused, "We spoke about-- and how could you  _not tell me_ you  _met_ the All-Mother! The _All_ - _Mother herself!_ " The more Merrill spoke, the higher her voice pitched, the more upset she became. "And sh-she-- Varric said...!" Varric was already getting up to handle the Dalish girl's sudden clamor, but when she invoked his name, he came stumbling hurriedly over to stand behind her, pressing his hands on her shoulders to get her attention. To the whole table's attention. Because while Hal might have figured out that Merrill probably didn't mean to insinuate the Dread Wolf had gotten her with child, the rest of the table had either never heard her use that phrase or else had only heard it once. And, of course, why would anyone who wasn't Dalish know it was a thing people said? An innocuous -- if gently blasphemous -- exclamation.

"Hal!" Varric interrupted, forcing a casual laugh, "I, uh, I'm really sorry, but earlier this morning, I may have accidentally let slip that you know  _Mythal._ " He accompanied the heavy emphasis with a lift of his brows that was full of intention. Mythal, his expression said, albeit sloppily, and only Mythal.

The entire table breathed out a collective sigh of relief that Merrill didn't notice at all. " _Knew!_ " the vallaslin'd girl sobbed. " _Knew_ Mythal!"

Great. So while Merrill didn't know that her recently rediscovered cousin was having the Betrayer's baby, while she was not aware perhaps of the misconstrued stories they had been taught, while she had no idea the most hated member of the elven pantheon was within arm's reach, she did know, apparently, that Hal had met Mythal, which was not so terrible -- plenty of people knew that in the Inquisition -- and, more unfortunately, that Mythal was no more for this physical world.

"I...may have mentioned that Mythal, uh...well, I was trying to explain why you collapsed, and I accidentally might have..." Varric cringed his apology on one side of Hal and Fen'Harel rubbed his temples on the other. And in between all this was Merrill. Sobbing.

Fuck.

"Daisy," offered the dwarf placatingly, "The whole point of getting drunk this morning was to not feel anything, remember?"

Merrill hiccoughed, tears streaming down her cheeks. "These aren't feelings! This is a crisis of faith! We failed her! We've failed the All-Mother! Just like I f-failed my..." Whatever she was going to say -- clan, Keeper, People, whatever -- was muffled by her hiding her face in her hands.

Fen'Harel's hand trembled slightly in her own and she felt him start to pull away, felt his half of their shared magic try to run, but she interlaced their fingers and held on tightly. He sent her a pleading look then, but instead of letting him flee to torture himself about how _he_ had failed Mythal, she pressed her lips to his, willing comfort and steady affection through their skin, through his energy in her bones and blood. He didn't retreat, but he did move a little closer to her body on the bench, and she scooted the rest of the distance between them so he didn't have to. It was only with their bodies pressed together that Hal finally felt Fen'Harel slowly start to uncoil.

A few of the other patrons were watching now, but luckily Grim was arm-wrestling Krem, much to Bethany's delight, so most of the attention was on them. Still, this was not a conversation for the Herald's Rest. It wasn't a conversation to have in this order at all. Dammit, Varric! 

 _Herald's Rest_ , thought Hal wryly,  _as if she gets any._

"Merrill," Hal sighed, reaching for the elf with her free hand, "asa'var'lin, we didn't fail anybody." She wrapped gentle fingers around her cousin's wrist and applied soft pressure to pull it away from Merrill's face. She needed to look Merrill in the eye. "Mythal chose to leave. Okay? And I would have told you last night, I had planned to tell you when I gave you proof about the vallaslin, but..."

But the malnourished Dalish siblings and her own fears about her pregnancy had triggered a series of memories that her young mind had been desperate to forget.

"We shouldn't talk about this here," she went on, keeping her voice coaxing and running her thumb over the back of Merrill's hand. "And definitely not while your body is half alcohol." She glanced at Fen'Harel questioningly, checking in with him to see if he would be all right where he was, should she pull away. Without even changing his carefully coached neutrality, he gave his assent. So Hal crawled closer to her kin, close enough to slip her arm around Merrill's back, and leaned her forehead to the other girl's short hair. "Merrill," she sighed, and her cousin finally began to let down her hands. "Tomorrow Solas and I will travel through the Eluvians to see Divine Victoria. I want...I want to find Lanaya and I think she may be our best shot. You remember her better than I and she's your family too. So why don't you come with us, and when we're far away from eavesdroppers, we'll explain everything. Okay? Please, asa'var'lin."

Merrill was quiet for some time, staring dejectedly at the table instead of at Hal, but making no effort to move away from the Inquisitor's nearness or touch. So of the two of them, only Hal noticed the quiet activity in her periphery as Dorian waved Varric over and proceeded to point out with whispered profanities just how strange it was to see them next to each other. Because while their similarities were not so pronounced that the uninitiated might notice it, it was strong enough that once seen, it could not be unseen. 

It was while Hal was carefully ignoring the attention of the men at the table, including her Wolf, that Merrill finally turned to look at her, all wide green eyes. "Will you at least tell me...was it Fen'Harel?"

Everyone at the table consciously busied themselves with anything else. Except Fen'Harel, who had gone still again. He wasn't interested in what Merrill was asking, though. His intense focus was waiting on Hal's reply.

"Was what Fen'Harel, Merrill?" she asked casually.

"Did Fen'Harel murder Mythal?"

"No," Hal promised immediately, pulling back slightly under the pretense of searching Merrill's features to make sure she was believed, but actually moving away to give herself the ability to brush her pinky against Fen'Harel's. "Mythal chose to go this time. And do you know what the All-Mother told me?" Merrill shook her head, child-like. "Mythal told me we've done Fen'Harel a great disservice. She told me the Dread Wolf loved The People more than anything else in the world. That he sacrificed everything for us."

For a moment, it looked like Merrill was going to argue, but her brain was working sluggishly and her tears made her pliant. "Mythal really said that?"

"I told you, asa'var'lin," Hal affirmed delicately, emboldened by Fen'Harel's hand slipping over hers, "we've gotten so much so wrong. But especially the Wolf." Her Wolf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations: 
> 
> "Asa'var'lin" - cousin, female


	29. Chapter 29

The day had felt neverending to Hal, who spent the afternoon very aware that she had not really slept the night before as she tried to make sure at least  _something_ managed to get done. And it had, eventually. She convinced Dorian to at least help train Alarel once the boy was stronger, and Fen'Harel had insisted he would help when he next returned as Hal knew he would once she hinted that a school full of abandoned Dalish mages was the perfect place to start rebuilding The People. He even volunteered to find the sentinels to help while he was repairing the Eluvians, gathering proof for the Keepers, and working his literal magic on the "elven artifacts" that strengthened the Veil. Artifacts that Hal now knew were of his making, just as the Crossroads was. Her clever, noble Wolf. And, of course, there were always things to sign, decisions to make, letters to send. Offers to accept or ignore or set aside. Troops to move and forts to supply with Cullen still gone.

She had been suddenly voracious for dinner and deeply contented by the way Fen'Harel had watched her eat with approval, occasionally brushing his fingers over her lower abdomen as though there was something to feel already. It was so marvellously good to have him there with her, to experience his doting affections, to see him swell with pride each time someone mentioned her condition. It would make it so much harder to see him go tomorrow. So much more painful to go through all this without him. But she also overheard him murmuring to her trusted friends on more than one occasion about what they were to do for her when he was away. It might have been a truly pleasant rest of the day, entirely peaceful and perfect, if it hadn't been for her advisors meeting that night. If she hadn't had to face down Josie and Cass on her own to explain how it was all of Skyhold was buzzing about the Inquisitor's elven baby. There were already rumors it had been conceived in some kind of tangled mass with Dorian and Bull, possibly on the throne or in the library. Cassandra wanted to have Sera cast out immediately (and not for the first time), but Josie and Hal calmed her as best they could and reminded her that it was much better to be Friends of Red Jenny than Enemies of Red Jenny.

Josie, on the other hand, though she momentarily looked like she might want to cry, maintained her head surprisingly well. As it turned out, she had already been paving the way for the inevitable leak and all she had to do now was put things in motion. Most of the meeting had been about explaining how the next eight months -- "Or however long it may take," Josie had corrected sympathetically -- would go from a public relations standpoint rather than wasted with bickering and accusations. Hal had been so thoroughly relieved that she'd hugged them both, kissed both women on the cheeks, much to the Ambassador's delight and the Seeker's protestations. 

But it was still late when she finally trudged up the stairs to her quarters, exhausted and sore simply from the effort of existing while a child stole all her nutrients and energy. She was so worn out that she didn't notice how wonderful her staircase smelled until she was a few steps from her room, suddenly enveloped in vanilla and heavy tropical flowers and the clean, fresh fragrance of mint and summer rain. It was so immediately relaxing that she paused where she stood and leaned against the wall, closing her eyes to let herself breathe it all the way in, to let it soak into her spirit and mix with Fen'Harel's magic pulsing in her veins. It was already alert, his energy that was becoming an indistinguishable part of her, reaching out sweetly for its other half because her quarters were practically swimming in it. In her heart's magic.

It permeated the air like the scented steam that filled her lungs, moved through her and played over her skin like his touch in the Fade, somehow both real and imagined, dream-like and undeniably physical.

"Vhenan," came the low, rumbling sound of his voice from the top of the stairs, and in his words she heard warmth and light and love like his arms around her when he first confessed his feelings on her balcony, like his near-religious fervor as he moved inside her that perfect first time. She felt her cheeks heat just at the thought and smiled her satisfaction even before she opened her eyes to find him watching her in his quiet, worshipful way, his hand offered as though he planned to whisk her away to some significant place in the Fade. "I've been waiting for you."

A shiver moved up her spine, his words sweeping her skin so tangibly that she might have thought he was sending magic out for her if she didn't know better. Her magic knew his. Her magic was his. One could not so much as shimmer in such close proximity without the other knowing it intimately. It had done mind-numbing things for their love making. For a long moment she didn't bother to join him, resting still against the wall a few steps below, both of them more than content to watch the other watching them. It would be some time before they could be even in the same room like this. They were determined to soak it in. But eventually he smiled at her, slow and steady as the beat of his heart as he slept, and gestured for her with that offered hand. "Come. Let me take care of the mother of my child."

Her smile was unabashedly abashed, so full of pleasure that there was no containing it -- not in her pink cheeks or her bright eyes or even the wave of magic that rolled off of her in response -- and she did as he bid, holding out her own hand to join with his as she closed the space between them. When Hal stood beside Fen'Harel, he gathered her into his arms and brushed his lips against hers, then again and again until their tongues were gladly rediscovering each other with the easy patience of two bodies that knew they would have time. Perhaps it would not be forever, but it would be time. And that could be enough for now. They would make it enough.

Fen'Harel skimmed the backs of his fingers down her cheek as they disentangled, breathed her in as she had his magic, openly memorizing her scent as though he hadn't already, as though it wasn't just as much a part of him now as his heart beat or the marrow in his bones. She knew hers must be for him because his clean, earthy smell haunted her when he wasn't near, drifting on the wind so that she lost track of a conversation mid-sentence and ached for the feel of his freckled skin, the morning light from her windows playing across his strong features, the subtle bend in his ears.

"Your scent is changed," he sighed into her hair, apparently reading her mind. "It was...forests and summer breezes and something sweet not even the Wolf could place, but it is different now. It was intoxicating and now..."

Hal pulled back a little to lift her brows at him with amusement, daring him to say the wrong thing. "And now?"

His half-smile was crooked and she kissed the lifted corner, making the other rise as well. "And now..." he repeated at a purr, his sound vibrating in his chest, "It is a subtle change, ma halla, and I have not parsed it quite yet, but it is..." He breathed out heavily, shook his head. "Whatever it is drives the Wolf mad." Her sly, roguish smile made his usually cool gaze flash. "He knows only fierce possessiveness when you are near. It is...distracting.  _You_ are distracting."

Hal leaned her weight against Fen'Harel, letting her pelvis and the gentle swell of her belly press at his breeches and tunic. Her fingers found the teeth of his pendant, Fen'Harel's teeth, she thought with light mirth, and she looked up at him through her lashes, a gesture just short of obvious flirtation. "That's the Wolf. What about you? What do you know when I'm near?"

"Pride, of course," he replied in that airy way of his, and he shifted her around him, his hands on her hips, so that she was further into the room, away from the stairs. Fen'Harel sank to his knees before her and lifted her tunic to just below her breast band to reveal pale skin that had only just begun to protrude. Hal shivered again at the warmth of his breath and then the pressure of his lips and nose over her womb. His hands drifted to the place where her slender elven form met the new hill of her stomach, dusting the pads of his thumbs along the flesh there with a reverence he usually reserved for the relics of Arlathan. But then, in many ways, their child would be exactly that.

"Ar lath ma, da'len," he whispered to her abdomen, lips shifting on her skin as he spoke. "Ma da'vhenan." Warmth blossomed through her, a strong, fierce love for the child within her and the man kneeling before her. Hal smoothed her hand over Fen'Harel's head all the way to the nape of his neck, basking in the overwhelming connection of their bodies, their magic, their hope. 

It was as they stood like that, enamored with each other and their child's future, that Hal finally looked around her quarters. Her touched astonishment came out as a breathy gasp. It was transformed. He had moved her tub from the wash room to the balcony, where a barrier kept out the cold and captured the steam of the hot bath he had drawn for her. Orbs of veil fire floated overhead, lighting the soft petals of exotic flowers that floated lazily atop the water. The Veil was so thin around the tub that the very air wavered between her room and something he had created, a stunning crystalline tower that swallowed the trunk of an enormous birch tree like a woman taking in her lover. It was sparsely decorated, but what there was was lavish, thick carpets that sparkled like a sweet dream of a clear night sky, murals painted onto the very skin of the tree depicting a man with a white wolf that she recognized immediately as his handiwork. And hanging from the person-sized branches that flowered purple among silver-green leaves overhead was a simple round bower filled with thick Fade-crafted blankets and pillows like white clouds.

"Fen," she murmured, awestruck and stupidly happy, and he glanced up at her in surprise because she had never once used so informal a nickname for him, not even when she knew him as Solas. Perhaps because while the others called her Hal, he always called her Hal'la, because he spoke poetry and it had always felt like shortening his name would be cheapening the sincerity and intensity of his spirit. And now, well...who was she to be casual and contemporary with the Dread Wolf? Sure, she was his heart, she would bear his child, but it was still always Fen'Harel or Dread Wolf or "ma Fen". Titles. Titles that she loved, titles that drove him mad with lust, but still titles. Until, she realized suddenly, this morning. Because though he had submitted to her in the Fade, he still had his distance and secrets, still avoided speaking of his past. But this morning he had told her the name his parents gave him at birth. Fen'Hellan. It was the constant in all his names and titles, the spirit with whom he'd joined, the very core of who he was. He had finally shown her the man he was before the god. It was a small difference, one that wouldn't register at all to an untrained ear; it was more a contextual, tonal shift than anything. She could have called him "Fen" and kept the formality with a slightly different inflection, but a minute change of intention had stripped the word of its status. Made it small and dear and close. And it finally felt right.

He smiled his approval, the tips of his ears turning pale pink, and she tried it again, already in love with the intimacy of the sound. "Fen."

"Hal'la," he laughed lightly, his eyes twinkling his amusement, "in Elvhenan, only my blood relatives would be allowed to speak to me so familiarly." She flushed as he paused. "And my wife."

Hal was aware then that her face must have been furiously crimson. "Ir abelas," she mumbled, and he laughed again.

"Tel'abelas. We are not in Elvhanan. And I would hear my name on your lips so long as you have breath." He kissed her stomach again. "After all, you will be my wife, will you not?"

Hal's smile was foolishly wide. "Yes please," she breathed. Her brow knit slightly with a new thought. "Fen," she began, and he wrapped his arms around her hips, "what would you call me? If we were in Elvhenan."

He made a soft humming sound as he considered it, but she knew him well enough to notice that it was not at all the first time he had. "My Lady," he 'decided', "when we were introduced." Neither of them mentioned that she most likely would have been a slave, not a noble. "Hal'lasean as we became friends. Ma halla, vhenan, ma lath as I came to love you. And when we were bound, that night as we consummated the sacred ceremony, I would whisper Hal'la in your ear while I made you sing for me."

Her face was still hot, now with arousal as well as embarrassment, but it didn't keep her from smirking wryly at Fen'Harel. "But you've called me Hal'la since we first made love," she pointed out.

He feigned innocent ignorance with such a shrewd look in his steely eyes that her heart fluttered in her chest. "Have I? So I have."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Vhenan" - (my) heart  
> "Ar lath ma, da'len" - "I love you, child"  
> "Ma da'vhenan" - "my little heart"  
> "Ma Fen" - "my Wolf"  
> "Ir abelas" - "I am (full of sorrow/sorry)"  
> "Tel'abelas" - "I am not (full of sorrow/sorry)"  
> "Ma halla" - "my halla"  
> "Ma lath" - "my love"


	30. Chapter 30

Fen'Harel found himself constantly reminding the Wolf that there would be time for roughly taking Hal'la and marking her as his in the Fade. That his purpose for tonight, this last time he would see her in the flesh before her confinement, was not to possess her, much as he might want to, but to care for her. To do all the things he would do throughout her pregnancy if only he could be by her side. Even contented as he was now with his arms holding her to him at the hips, with his lips on her bare stomach, the thought of his absence clawed at him, bled him, soured his current happiness with the awful truths of the future. He would not be here for her in the way she deserved, in the ways in which he longed. When her ankles were swollen and her back ached, he would be trudging through waist-deep swamp in search of Abelas or one of his devices. It would be Dorian who rubbed her feet and slipped a pillow under her knees. When she craved a strange food in the middle of the night, he would be walking the Fade in cold Elvhen ruins in search of something, anything they could use against his kin. It would be Cole who stole her desired snack from the darkened kitchen. When their child moved within her, pressed a tiny hand against her womb, he would be collecting rubbings of reliefs that depicted the truth of The People's history to show at the coming Arlathvhen. It would be Josephine who traced the little palm on her skin with awe. The only thing keeping him from giving up entirely and never leaving her side again was the knowledge that she would never allow him to sacrifice his duty for her. Hal'la promised him she would make sure he left her to do his noble work and so she would, no matter how he begged. Part of him hated that damnable stubborn streak, that selflessness in her that demanded selflessness from him even when neither of them wanted it. But of course he could not love her as he did if those things were not so much of who she was anymore than she could love him as she did if he were the kind of man who placed his own selfish desires over the good of his people. If only they could be simple folk, roaming the land in aravels with their clan, loving each other with only the day's work to worry them. He had never before wished so much to be Dalish. But then, he thought grimly, her parents had been such simple folk. He held her more tightly to him.

No more of these thoughts. His love had had a traumatic night followed by a trying day and while he was present with her now, he intended to make sure she knew what he wished fervently he could do for her in the coming...months, hopefully. Or perhaps not so hopefully, at least for him. Months would suggest his child were mortal and then...

Fen'Harel shook his head and Hal'la let out a fond laugh when it made his lips shift on her skin. "Don't think so much," she told him knowingly. His ears heated guiltily. "You're here with me. Don't waste it worrying. Just be here. Be present with me now." She dragged her fingernails lightly over the back of his neck and up his scalp and he brushed his lips against her belly once more before finally unwinding his arms from around her hips. 

"Yes, hahren," he teased, smiling to himself without looking up at her to see the mirroring expression he knew graced her pale, perfect visage. He dipped his fingers between her skin and the waist of her breeches, sliding his hands from her backside to the laces at the front, which he untied with one easy pull. Hal'la stood still for him, more than happy to let him do all the work, which was precisely what he had in mind, and within a few moments of deft fingers, the results of ever so much practice undressing the woman in front of him, he had her stepping out of her pants, her smallclothes -- with a chaste nuzzle against the downy, silver hair between her legs like intricate Elvhen filigree -- and the elven wrappings on her feet. He was holding the pile down for her so she could extricate herself when her tunic draped completely over his head and face, bending his ears out in a most undignified manner. She was silent above him and he could not see her through the cloth, but he knew because he knew her that she was laughing soundlessly, delighted by her own mischief. Her breast band followed, hanging off his shoulder, and Fen'Harel finally dragged them from his face so he could give her the flattest, most unamused look he could manage. But of course it failed because she was grinning down at him and waggling her dark eyebrows and he was helpless not to catch her mirth. 

With one swift motion, he swept her from her feet, standing up even as he held her behind the knees with one arm, behind the back with the other, and she laughed brightly as she looped her arms around his neck. "Come, ma asha," he declared like he was giving her a choice in the matter even though he was already carrying her to the bath he had prepared. "I have planned our one night in each other's arms. I will have you know with certainty by the time I part from you tomorrow how deep and true my love runs." It was a statement he made so grandly that she laughed again and then he was lowering her carefully into water his magic held at just the right temperature for her; it elicited a sharp hiss at first contact and then drew out a long, grateful sigh as she sank beneath the petals he'd shaped from the Veil and her skin adjusted to the heat. When she was settled, they let each other go and he spelled the water from the arms of his tunic to dry it off. 

"Your plan had better involve getting in this tub with me," Hal'la warned him frankly, and he dutifully -- and gladly -- pulled his shirt and sweater over his head as one. Fen'Harel folded them neatly and set them aside, out of reach of any splashing of water, and pretended he didn't notice the superior look on his love's face at his supposedly meticulous clean up. "Keep going," she encouraged, and he laughed lightly, placing himself in front of her and holding her eager turquoise gaze while he unlaced his breeches and pulled them away from his waist and groin enough so that they dropped in a dramatic pile on the floor. He was only at half-mast, so it was hardly a majestic reveal, but she bit her lip anyway and his breath caught in his chest at the very thought of her desire. She held out both arms to him when he stood naked before her, dripping water out of the tub and onto the floor, and he stepped into them, letting her leave wet handprints on his hips and ass. She drew moist fingertips along the 'v' line of muscle she favored between his abs and pelvis, and he could not help the sound in his throat at the heat of her hand trailing along his rapidly growing length. The Wolf howled his need but Fen'Harel pushed the beast away, calmed himself as best he could.

" _That_ is not part of the plan until later, my fresh halla," he informed her, his voice rough with barely contained lust, and he gently removed her hands from him so that he could pull himself into the blessedly hot bath, drifting luxuriously into the water at the opposite side of the tub. He slid his legs beneath hers; it gave them both adequate room -- not so ample as he might have liked, nor so ample as they would have had in his many suites and palaces around Elvhenan, but adequate -- and afforded him an absolutely breathtaking view of her changing body. He felt no need to deny himself the open study of her form, of the way her breasts had grown already, of the gentle curve of her belly, of the silver-capped ripe pink of her sex that matched the new coloring at the tips of her ears. If they were in the courts of Arlathan and had not yet been bound, she would have worn her hair low over her ears to cover that tell-tale sign or painted them over with cosmetics to keep the gossip at bay until she could be spirited away to quicken in one of his temples, attended by acolytes sworn to secrecy. But were they bound, she would have worn the red of her ears for all to see, presented like a trophy. It would have been a point of pride for both husband and wife. The other noble women would have congratulated her on her fertility, on her catching the Dread Wolf, then turned to each other as she left their presence and sniped jealously at how she carried the child, at how unworthy they thought she was of such a prize as He Who Hunts Alone. But the men would do the same to him, debating what she must look like nude and laughing at ribald jokes that guessed at her manner in bed, grumbling that the Dread Wolf would not know how to service a woman so sweet and fine, lamenting what a waste it was that they had not had her before she was bound.

Or he would have had to purchase her from Mythal with favors before she began to show. Would have taken her to his acolytes at his favorite temple and kept her there even when he freed her from bondage. Would bind himself to her secretly until he could raise her station. Would...

No. These thoughts too were useless and painful. He would never have taken her to bed had she worn Mythal's vallaslin in Arlathan. He would have been uninterested in taking something that could not be denied him, even if it belonged to someone else. Especially if it belonged to Mythal.

 _She_ , he corrected himself sharply, a lump in his throat.  _She, not it. She would not be a thing. No slave was ever truly a thing, you old fool._

"Tell me," Hal'la murmured with loving concern, her brow wrinkled as she watched him slide into that familiar place of self-loathing. "If you're going to think it while you're with me, at least tell me what it is so I can fight it with you."

Fen'Harel's heart swelled even as his guilt clenched around it like a fist. He could not tell her his thoughts, not these, and so he moved on with his plan for the night, his expression serious and concentrated as he took one of her narrow feet in his hands and pressed his thumbs into the arch.

"It is nothing," he assured her, and tried for a smile. She clearly was not going to let it go, though, so he added a little piece of truth: "I am grateful that we are together here and now. You are too bright for the Elvhenan that was."

"Sweet talker," Hal'la teased, and the reflected Veil around them shimmered briefly to Haven, to the place she had first kissed him, before returning to the poor copy of his favored palace. She watched the change with a secretive smile, pleased at her effect on him, and then leaned back in the tub, rested her head on the rim, and closed her eyes. Her silverite hair spilled out around her shoulders and swam against her breasts where it was long enough to reach the water. It was truly a stunning sight, her body stretched out pleased and pink and pregnant before him. "Is this the plan?" she wondered. Her tone suggested that she approved.

"This is part of the plan," Fen'Harel agreed with a smile. "As I will not be here for you as you quicken--"

"We'll be together once a week at least in the Fade," she reminded him as she always did, this time without even opening her eyes. She knew he knew, just as she knew he would continue to hold his absence against himself. So she always argued, even knowing he would not listen.

"As I will not be here for you  _physically_ ," he corrected patiently and was rewarded with a smile, "I wanted to experience those things with you tonight." He rubbed firmly along all the delicate muscles of her foot, digging between bones with strong fingers, seeking out knots with tendrils of his magic. "My plan is to see you well and thoroughly massaged, to wash you with scented oils and take you to bed, where I will whisper Elvhen to your womb and then pleasure you until you beg me to fill you." Her eyes opened, settling soft and teal on his features, and he gave her a sly, wolfish smile in return. "Then I plan to spread you open before me and keep you up all night singing my name."

The way she flushed turned his smile self-satisfied and pooled heat between his legs, where his flesh pulsed thick with his pride and desire for the woman before him so contented with what she had made of his seed. The Wolf bayed within his chest, but he pushed it away, concentrated his efforts on her pliant body beneath his fingers.

"That's a good plan," she murmured throatily. 

"Mm," he concurred. "I thought so."

"May I make a suggestion, my Wolf?" Hal'la wondered, her voice purposefully light.

"Please do," he answered, and for a moment they smiled stupidly at each other, all blissful affection. But then she let hers slide into something solemn.

"Will you speak to me about your life?" his heart asked hopefully. "I want to know everything there is to know about the man you were. About Elvhenan." She smiled sweetly. "If it doesn't interfere with the rest of the plan."

Fen'Harel let out a soft laugh, and though he meant it to mask the sudden tightness in his chest, she saw right through him. As she always did. "You are my life," he whispered, letting his chin dip toward his chest. He knew this would come one day, had tried to prepare himself for the moment, but the loathing that soaked through his blood like poison was stronger than he expected, his terror at the look in her eyes as he explained the things he had done, who he had been...

Her hand pressed his cheek and he looked up to find her leaned forward in the tub, studying him that way she always did when she caught him flagellating himself for his myriad past (and present) sins. That way that said she saw it and did not mind. That she saw it and it was not what he thought. "Fen," she murmured soothingly. "Trust me."

He turned his head enough to press his lips to her wrist. "I trust you," he replied quietly, for both their sakes. He took in a breath and redoubled his efforts on the slim bones of her feet. She leaned back again, but kept her eyes on him, and he tried for the spirit of a brave smile. "Ma nuvenin, vhenan'ara."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations: 
> 
> "Hahren" - elder  
> "Ma asha" - "my (girl/woman)"  
> "Ma nuvenin, vhenan'ara" - "as you wish, my heart's journey"


	31. Chapter 31

"I do not know where to begin," Fen'Harel admitted, letting his gaze rest on the kneading motion of his hands on her ankle because he was already too ashamed to meet Hal'la's quiet, rapt attention. Because the man he had been deserved her and the joy she brought even less than the man he was now. 

"Is it too painful to tell me about your family?" she suggested, her voice delicate in its understanding of his struggle. "You could start there. Or if it is too painful, start wherever you're comfortable. You don't have to go in order. I just..." He could hear her smile, feel it in the magic that moved so naturally now between them. "Even what you told me this morning made me feel...so much closer to you. I want more of that. But it can be anything you're willing to give, ma lath. I don't want you to hurt."

He felt his ears heat and he forced himself to lift his gaze to hers, made sure he did not flinch at the sweet acceptance and adoration he knew he would find there. She did not know. 

 _Trust her_.

He cleared his throat, his brow dragging low over his troubled eyes. He need not tell her everything, not this time, need not see her lose respect, lose-- no. Trust her! Trust her.

"I..." Her fingers draped lightly across his leg, the tips already tracing the now-familiar Dalish patterns she always called up in these moments, as if invoking some hidden power of her people that had come into being during his long sleep. But there was no secret magic for the Dalish. There was only hers. Her subtle magic that was not subject to mana or Lyrium. The magic she wove on him with a look or a word, more effective than any true spell. Perhaps more true than any physical spell. He wondered not for the first time since falling for her if there were not other such powers in the world, if it were possible that they were everywhere, in everything, but he had been too guarded, too proud to see them before. That it had taken a singular, brilliant spirit without access to the magic that ran even through the blood of the Magisters of Tevinter to show him the invisible wonders beyond the Fade. The wonders that made up the very fabric of existence. He pondered if Mythal had known such wonders with Elgar'nan, whose fury she could cool with a touch. If Falon'Din and Dirthamen had felt it. He knew the sisters had not. It was unlikely Andruil had ever known any love but that of her parents, and though Sylaise certainly had a capacity for it, she and June had never been much more than a marriage of convenience. A sudden engagement in the whirlwind of angry lust that had been his affair with her sister. They had been his good friends, June and Sylaise, and there had been something warm that blossomed in him when she touched his wrist as they laughed into their cups, draped on pillows and carpets before her great hearth. It was a pale thing in comparison to how he had felt even the first time he laid eyes on Hal'lasean's unconscious form being swallowed by his anchor, but it had been up until then the closest thing to love he had found. But he had joined with the Wolf in the Void and lost himself in the hunt and the Huntress and when he finally remembered who he was, Sylaise was bound to June. It had hurt fiercely at the time, but now he could not imagine a life tied eternally to a woman with whom he shared only respect and familiarity.

"Fen?" His name, the name of the man before the god, tripping worriedly from Hal'la's lips as though it had been made to fit there. It was only then he realized he had not spoken in some time, that his hands had gone still on her leg.

"Ir abelas, vhenan," he murmured in embarrassment. But she smiled. If there was one sentence that perfectly described his life in the past two years, it was that: But she smiled. A smile that changed everything. "I was lost in memory."

"We can speak of something else," came her gentle offer, but he was shaking his head even before she had finished forming the words.

"I was well loved by my parents," Fen'Harel began, frowning seriously. He rested the foot he held on his leg and reached for her other one to administer his attentions there. "I was their only child. My mother had wanted a girl as well, but did not conceive again. I was therefore the last scion of a house ancient even for Arlathan, my mother's house, brought low before my birth by the scandal of her binding to my father." He breathed in deeply, measured and controlled, and let it out through his nose. "My father was noble of course, but his house had declared its loyalty to one of the Others before the Schism that sent us to war. My parents met on a field of battle. My mother accepted my father's surrender and he accepted her heart. The rest of his house was executed by Elgar'nan for the crimes of their misplaced allegiance, but my father..." He let out a soft laugh, an earnest one. "My father was an oddity even beyond all that. He was a skilled warrior, but a disinterested one. He was the finest Fadewalker of his time, able to traverse the Void as easily as his own home, an expert in the Beyond. Had he been born to a different house, had the Schism never occurred, he might have ascended to the pantheon himself."

Fen'Harel paused then, let his gaze travel the now-unmarked nobility of Hal'lasean's high forehead, the sweep of her small nose, the delicate but striking lines of her cheekbones, her jaw. It was a natural, unaffected beauty, a long cry from the powdered and painted glamor of the ladies of the courts. Even Sylaise had followed the fashions in her own understated way. Understated by Elvhanan society dictates, which still required, at minimum, the sort of effort that was typical of modern Orlais, though infinitely less gaudy and ostentatious. He would have liked to tell her now -- the love of his long, endless life -- that his mother would have approved of her. That his father would have delighted in his son's choice. 

"They were good people," he murmured instead, almost as an apology. "By noble Elvhen standards. We..." Say it, you coward. "...We treated our slaves well. We did not separate families. They were healthy and educated. We...rarely had cause to...to punish..." His breath was shallow in his chest and she pressed her hands to his feet in response, in support he did not deserve, could never deserve. How could she love him knowing who he had been? How? He could not. He...

"You didn't know any better," she whispered, those turquoise eyes with their threads of violet moist with her empathy and love -- unconditional, inexplicable love for a man who would never be able to atone for his folly, for the mistakes of his ancestors. It was only seeing the wetness of her gaze that he finally noticed the tracks of tears that moved at a glacial pace down his cheeks. 

"There is no excusing it," he insisted, his voice low and rough. "My parents were entitled and privileged, willfully unaware of what they did. They lived a life surrounded by slaves bearing Elgar'nan's mark in penance for the loyalty of my father's house. They complained behind closed doors not about the plight of The People, not about the injustice of their ownership of living, sentient beings, but about being required to mark their slaves with a vallaslin they did not choose. They felt it keenly unfair and it never once occurred to them -- to me -- that the slaves themselves had even less of a say in the matter, that any of it was wrong at all, much less an abomination. They -- we -- saw ourselves as generous benefactors of our living property. We saw them as lesser beings, unworthy of..." It hurt. It hurt so deeply. His face was hotter than the water in which he sat and he could no longer bear to see Hal'la's instant forgiveness. He shut his eyes tightly. "I wish I could tell you my parents would have welcomed you as my wife. But you bore Mythal's vallaslin and you have no magic of your own, which was unheard of in Elvhenan. They would not have so much as given you a chance to prove yourself as...as a slave, much less..."

"If we were in Elvhenan," Hal'la added almost inaudibly, "you would not have fallen in love with me at all. But we are not in Elvhenan, Fen'Hellan." His heart clenched sharply at her voice wrapped around his given name. "And you are not the boy who wouldn't have looked twice at a girl marked for Mythal."

He opened his eyes again to consider her, slowly, reluctantly, uncertain of what he would find in her expression and unsure of what he wanted to find. He found sincerity, the openness she always gave him, and forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness. Acceptance and absolution.

"I was not blind," he murmured in answer, his humor dry in opposition to his eyes, "I would have looked more than twice at anything so beautiful." But even that teasing compliment felt wrong and twisted in this conversation. 

But she smiled.

"My parents were Dalish," she reminded him. "If they lived and I brought them a man without vallaslin, I doubt very much they would have welcomed you as my husband. But I'm not the Dalish girl I was, ma uthlath, and you're not the Elvhen noble you were. And neither of us have parents left to disapprove."

His gaze fell to his hands stalled on her calf and for some time he turned her words over and over in his mind, trying and failing to help them sink in. And then like a message from the Beyond, Mythal's plum magic shifted within him.

"We have Mythal's approval," he observed, and managed the smallest hint of a smile. 

"And she's the All-Mother," laughed his heart.

"If they had come to know you as I do," he decided softly, watching Hal'la with adoration, "they would have loved you. They would have been proud." If she had been a mage. If she had been noble. Then they truly would have been proud of his choice. Not that Hal'lasean had given him much of a choice; to know her was to be in love with her. 

She gave him a crooked smile that said she did not believe him, but that she appreciated his effort. "Enough," Hal'la declared, and then she was moving toward him in the tub, turning to place her back against his chest with one of her small hands cupping what had been his erection to protect it as she settled. It had flagged with his guilt, hanging as pathetic and low as his head. And yet she stroked it lovingly as she nestled it between their bodies and leaned back against him. "Enough sadness for one night. I didn't mean to upset you, ma lath." Fen'Harel ran his hands over her arms from her shoulders to her fingers and then moved her wet hair, gathered it with care and revealed one side of her neck so that he could press his lips at the place it met her collarbone, rest his chin forlornly on her shoulder.

"You deserve to know who I am," he sighed, and she rolled her eyes.

"I have always known who you are," Hal'la answered simply, as though there were no other response.

"You deserve to know who I was," he corrected.

"It doesn't matter," she insisted stubbornly. "I love you. I know everything I need for that."

Fear dug a pit in his stomach like a scrounging fox. "Hal'lasean..." Did he dare ask? Did he want to know the answer? "Do you prefer not to know because--"

She twisted in his arms, her spine spiraling so she could better deliver her stern, Inquisitorial look. "Is there anything I could do or could have done to make you love me less?"

"Of course not," Fen'Harel snapped without thought, the very question stinging at his pride, bruising his heart.

" _Trust me_ ," Hal'la repeated sharply, locking her eyes to his.

"I--" He was going to assure her that he did. Wholly. Completely. Unflinchingly. But that was not always the case, especially when it came to his own self-doubt, and they both knew she would be more than willing to point it out to him if he argued. He deflated against her, frustrated with himself for his inability to simply believe in her love. Because he did not believe he deserved it. "I am trying," he sighed. It came out strained with effort and emotion. She tasted them on his lips and he melted into her kiss.

He would try harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ir abelas, vhenan" - "I am (full of sorrow/sorry), my heart"  
> "Ma uthlath" - "my eternal love"  
> "Ma lath" - "my love"


	32. Chapter 32

They were no better than horny teenagers when they knew it would be some time before they would see each other again. It was why there was now an absurd song listing places they'd coupled. It was why she was pregnant -- or at least a major contributing factor. It wasn't like they didn't have an agreement that he would come see her once a week in the Fade; it had been one of the only ways to convince him not to come running back to her when she told him she was with child. He would see her once a week at least in the Fade, they had negotiated, so that he could be there for the dreaming reflection of her quickening in lieu of the real thing, so that he could have some semblance of the experience of watching her belly grow, so that she could tell him all her news, all her aches and pains and joys, so that he might help her determine how long she would carry and then come back to her for the birth. So that they could make love and hold each other and share in their hope. But the Fade was not flesh. And Fen'Harel had been very serious when he told her he planned to keep her up all night.

Still it was not enough. They caressed and kissed and laughed through their early breakfast, chased and teased and groped as they packed their supplies, had to redress three separate times because they kept losing clothes more quickly than they could put them on. If Hal hadn't already been knocked up, as Bull called it, she definitely would have been by the time they finally managed to meet Merrill at the gates.

The other girl -- her cousin, she kept having to remind herself -- didn't seem to mind having been made to wait, though. She had been making friends with a certain blonde boy in an oversized hat. They were deep in conversation with a shared intensity of focus when Hal and Fen'Harel arrived.

"Yes, but he wasn't only Anders," Merrill was explaining with animated gesticulation. "He allowed himself to be..." She frowned seriously as she tried to come up with just the right word. "Not possessed, but...host? Whatever it was, he had the Spirit of Justice inside him already."

"He gave Justice permission?" Cole echoed with awe and astonishment. "They existed together in one body?" _  
_

"It is not unheard of, Cole," Fen'Harel murmured when they were close enough to the ethereal duo. "Though it is dangerous for both vessel and spirit without proper knowledge."

While Fen offered wisdom, Hal reached under Cole's hat and smoothed his bangs from his eyes, tucking too-long strands of straw-colored hair behind one of his ears. It was the first time she had seen him since he tried to comfort her two nights prior. She should have sought him out to apologize, to assure him he did help, to make sure he knew he was needed and wanted. She hadn't forgotten about him in that way since he had become more human and she knew he could sense her guilt. But she was also full of gratitude and affection for the strange, dear creature that he was. He lifted his head at her touch and her thoughts, raising the brim of his hat, and smiled at her in greeting. "You're still hurting," he informed her, as if she didn't know, and it was so sweet she smiled. "But you're better now. He's here. You don't want him to leave even though he must, even though you'll make him, but for now he's here and your body aches in a way that makes you happy." It was impossible to miss the way Fen'Harel's lips twitched upward with pleasure. "Merrill's scared of what you're going to tell her, isn't sure she wants to know, wants to trust you but doesn't know if she should," and Cole turned suddenly to the elven man, "same as you -- you want to trust but it's hard, you're not used to it, it's like a muscle you've never moved before, but you should all trust Hal'lasean, you should trust her most and always because she worries, worries, worries about everyone, worries about hurting them and secrets and how she can help. She doesn't like it when people are in pain." He smiled at her again and she slipped her hand into his to give it a squeeze. "We're the same that way. But she thinks the truth is worth the pain it causes. Thinks it makes us stronger. Do you think that's true, Solas?" He had hesitated oh-so-briefly before using Fen'Harel's public name, but Merrill didn't seem to notice.

Her Wolf studied her thoughtfully, his gaze sidelong, and then gave Cole a well-considered nod. As he always did when answering the spirit's questions. Hal couldn't help but imagine him doing the same for their child one day. She only hoped it would age quickly enough to let her witness it. "Nothing is absolute, my friend, but I am learning that Hal'lasean is nearly always correct in such matters." She smirked and he scowled. "Do not preen or I will take you back to your quarters and we will never leave Skyhold." Her smirk turned into a broad grin. They were worse than horny teenagers, really. 

Merrill delicately cleared her throat, her cheeks bright pink, and Hal laughed helplessly in apology. "Asa'var'lin. I'm sorry we were..." Fucking. Repeatedly. On top of the balcony railing. Bent over her desk. Halfway down the stairs against the wall. "...delayed." And then he'd had to lay her out on the landing to offer some quick healing while she chugged a potion so that she wouldn't have to limp all the way to the Eluvian. It would not do for the Inquisitor to visit the new Divine for the first time barely able to walk.

"Cole..." her cousin began, flushing darker and looking for the best way to put whatever it was she was about to say, "...explained what was keeping you. Not that I didn't already have _some_ ideas after that song yesterday." Hal's immediate hope was that Cole's explanations hadn't involved too many details, and the boy pressed her hand in affirmation. Of course, what Cole considered too many details and what _she_ considered too many details might be very different things. Merrill, however, didn't appear too upset about that either. In fact, she brightened quickly. "He's very unique, isn't he! I can't help but think if he had been around Kirkwall, things might have gone very differently for...well, for everyone."

Fen'Harel's face was a mask, still and aloof for most of the world, but Hal knew the slight raise in his brows for impressed surprise because he had so many occasions to use it for her before she won his heart. "You are aware of what Cole is?" he wondered.

"Oh yes!" answered Merrill without thought. "Varric told us all about him! It's fascinating! A Spirit of Compassion in a human body! And all by himself! Varric wanted us to know in case Fenris or Hawke..." Her academic interest floundered, leaving her with a mournful smile. "She hasn't been the same since Anders. But Cole is so different from Anders and Justice, aren't you?" As though Cole were an adorable talking puppy.

"I almost wasn't," Cole mumbled like an adorable talking puppy, tightening his grip on Hal's hand. "But Solas and Varric and Hal'lasean taught me about what it means to be in this world. They're my friends. They're my good friends. They were the first ones to remember me even when I wanted them to forget."

"We're your clan," Hal replied softly, and Cole smiled at her again. Cole's smiles reminded her of Solas' when they first met, difficult to earn and therefore more worthwhile than the same gesture on other lips. Both Cole and the man who had been Solas smiled more easily for her these days. But at the moment, Fen'Harel kept his deliberate stillness, no doubt thinking about the time he had compelled Cole to forget him, about the way the spirit-made-flesh had ignored him, been hurt by him, held a very human grudge against him for the first week of his return. "That's what clans..." She hesitated then, studying Merrill uncertainly, and took a small but important risk: "That's what families do." For once, Merrill didn't miss the subtext of the conversation, perking up with a widening of her green eyes.

"The Dalish I have encountered--" Fen'Harel interrupted himself to meet Hal's frown. "--  _most_ of the Dalish I have encountered are suspicious of all spirits to the point of categorically avoiding them, sometimes to the point of violence. I am surprised someone trained to be a Keeper would be so accepting of a being like Cole."

"My cousin is hardly typical of the Dalish, vhenan," said Hal before Merrill could think to be offended. But apparently she had no reason to worry on that front.

"My clan didn't understand," Merrill admitted, dropping her gaze to where Hal and Cole's hands clasped. "Not even my Keeper would listen once she realized I'd spoken to a demon -- a _spirit._ Elgar'nan," and Fen'Harel stiffened imperceptibly, "They wouldn't even help me repair the Eluvian we found! For all our insistence about the importance of tradition and our supposed to desire to learn and keep our history, they wouldn't even  _listen_! And now..." Merrill's face fell, her shoulders slumped. Hal shot Fen'Harel a warning look to keep him from agreeing with the other woman's frustrations with the Dalish. "Creators," she breathed. "Now I don't know if I should listen or not. I want to know, I do, but how do  _you_ know for certain that what you've learned is truer than what the Keepers have taught us? What if it wasn't the All-Mother at all who spoke to you, but someone else? Someone working for the Dread Wolf?"

Now Hal was holding Fen'Harel's hand as well as Cole's, though, she wasn't sure if she reached for him or if he reached for her. "Merrill," she sighed, glancing longingly at the gates. "It was Mythal. But I'd prefer to do this out there, okay? We'll tell you everything that happened as soon as we're out of sight of Skyhold. We can even bring Cole with us to the Eluvian if you need someone to assure you it's the truth. Is that all right, Cole?" 

"I'd like to help," Cole answered easily. "She's already hurting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Asa'var'lin" - cousin, female  
> "Vhenan" - (my) heart


	33. Chapter 33

Everything was falling apart. Creators, hadn't she experienced that enough for one lifetime already? First when she'd been handed off to Sabrae at the Arlathvhen, then when they'd first found the Eluvian, then Keeper Marethari politely banishing her from the clan, the Qunari invasion of Kirkwall, Keeper Marethari letting the demon possess her and _dying_ for it, Anders blowing up the Chantry, the fight to save the Circle, the collapse of the city she'd come to call home into chaos, and now this. Merrill had spent so much of her life desperate for the truth, for history, for knowledge, and now that someone was finally offering it to her on a silver platter, she was no longer certain that she wanted it.

Certainly she had never thought it would be  _this_ truth. If it was even true. But why would Hal'lasean lie? And Varric trusted her, had told her specifically that everything the Inquisitor would tell her was true. And though it perhaps meant nothing at all to Hal'lasean, they  _were_ cousins. Merrill remembered little Tamalin so clearly, though she hadn't thought of that part of her life in a dozen years. Her parents had told her not to dwell on the clan of her birth or the life she left behind. But how many times must she start over? And why? She was beginning to believe quite fiercely that there must be something horribly wrong with her. She must be cursed, that's why everyone around her was always sending her away, never trusting her. But at least she still had Hawke. She had Varric and Bethany and, in his own grumpy way, Fenris. That was something. And should she decide to believe Hal'lasean, she would have her cousin. She would finally have another Dalish elf who understood. Part of Merrill thought she saw an equally desperate hope in her cousin's teal eyes sometimes when she laid out the story of what she knew of the truth, how she'd learned it. Like Hal'lasean had been waiting all her life, or at least since becoming the Herald of Andraste, to find another Dalish elf who understood.  _  
_

And Varric promised her Hal'lasean was trustworthy. So the question wasn't then whether or not the Inquisitor spoke the truth. It was whether or not Merrill was willing to accept it. It was a hard truth. It was many, many hard truths. The gods weren't gods, not really, not like they'd always believed, but something powerful, mages joined with spirits from the Beyond, from the Void, that had been forgotten or changed after the fall of Arlathan. That was the most difficult bit so far. Even the idea that Mythal had lived inside Asha'bellanar, a  _shemlen_ , that Merrill had  _met_ her, the All-Mother! Even that made a certain amount of sense. She had, after all, seen the Woman of Many Years turn into a massive dragon, which should have been impossible. In some ways it was even comforting to think that Asha'bellanar, though human in appearance, was immortal and so powerful because she was an Elvhen goddess -- no, not goddess, but if not a goddess, then what? -- rather than some, as Fenris might have called her, hedgewitch. 

"In actuality," Solas was saying as they wandered the path she and the Inquisitor had taken alone only days before, "the Pantheon was not peopled with gods at all, if such a thing exists, but were more akin to the dwarven idea of Paragons. The living embodiments of everything the Elvhen could and should be, according to the nobility of Elvhenan. They maneuvered for power and political gain as any aristocrat might. They were not above squabbles and petty jealousies and many of them were openly and appallingly cruel to those who could not protect themselves." He was so grim, this Elvhen lover of Hal'lasean's. Knowledgeable, yes, and she could imagine easily enough that he truly was as ancient as they said, but so very serious and grim except where his heart was concerned. Even now as he casually tore apart all the fundamental beliefs that had guided her entire life, he kept his fingers intertwined with her cousin's. It was only when she noticed that small hint of affection that she realized the spirit called Cole had at some point in all of this slipped his hand into hers. He walked silently beside her now, hidden beneath that ridiculous hat, but he held her hand. And that helped. Not much. But it helped. She wished Varric had come with them. Varric could always make her feel better. Or Hawke. Nothing felt so terrible when Hawke was there to help. It would be so nice if there was a ball of yarn she could trail behind her through this maze of information to help her find her way home. Even praying silently for guidance from the gods now felt...empty. Useless. Wrong. Everything was wrong.

"Merrill?" the Inquisitor ventured with kindness in her voice. "Are you all right? Do you want us to stop? I know. I know it's...a lot. And it hurts. I still...it still hurts me sometimes."

Solas bumped his shoulder against Hal'lasean's and even though Merrill felt like she was breaking up into pieces inside, she smiled just a little. It was good Tamalin had found happiness. It was good she was so loved. She wondered not for the first time if she would ever find something like that -- not with an Elvhen, the thought of it made her nauseated with nerves and feelings of inadequacy -- but with someone. She'd like to one day not be alone. To have someone like Hawke had Fenris, even though they liked to pretend it wasn't what it was, even though they were both so afraid and wounded. They still had each other. Tamalin -- Hal'lasean -- had Solas and they doted on each other visibly, especially when they thought no one was looking. Even that Qunari fellow and the Tevinter mage Dorian seemed happy with their odd pairing. Perhaps if she had someone like that, she wouldn't feel so... _alone_ in this.

"You're not alone," Cole whispered beside her, and she startled noticeably. "Didn't mean to scare you. But you're not alone. Sometimes I feel like that too, but I'm not alone either. You have people. People who love you. You're not alone. They might not all understand this, but they understand what it means to hurt. You're not alone." Merrill had to admit that as much as it was helpful to have him there reading her distress, she wasn't exactly thrilled to have someone with access to her thoughts. "Lots of people feel that way," he murmured. "It isn't all the time. Only when you're hurting. I hear the hurt. Only not as loud as it used to be. It's less now. I have my own thoughts now."

Merrill took several long, careful breaths, trying to keep her heart from pounding so loudly in her ears, and then looked up at Hal'lasean. "No, I-- I want to know." No, that wasn't right. "I need to know." That's better. "And if you stop now, I might not have it in me to let you start up again." Her fingers tightened on Cole's. It was unsettling to have him hearing her pain, but not as unsettling as the shattering feelings of her heart and mind each time the other two elves told her something new.

"Okay," agreed Hal'lasean gently. "But let us know if you change your mind." She paused for a moment, probably to decide what horrible thing to say next, and Merrill braced herself, her shoulders tensing up by her pointed ears. "Elvhenan was, unfortunately, more like Tevinter than--" Her cousin cut off suddenly and Merrill glanced over again to find Solas looking balefully at his lover. "I know you don't like the comparison, but it's the best one I have. There weren't racial issues in play, but there were nobles and slaves. What would you use to explain it?"

"It was  _not_ like Tevinter," Solas insisted coolly. "There was a class system, of course, and social status determined most of a person's life. Bloodlines were important. But there were only mages; even the slaves were powerful in their magic."

"Then why were they slaves in the first place?" Hal'lasean asked, and Solas let go of her hand to scrub at his face. She sighed and reached for his elbow. "I didn't mean it to sound so harsh," she assured him, and he hesitantly replaced his hand into hers. "I just don't understand how it happened. In Tevinter, it's because mages are held above everyone else. But if everyone was a mage in Elvhenan, then why were some of us slaves at all? What was the difference?"

It was strange to think that even Hal'lasean didn't know everything about this terrible Elvhenan she described, one so strange and frightening after a lifetime of stories about paradise, about elven peace and prosperity. 

Solas didn't answer for some time. When he did, his voice was quiet, and though there wasn't much feeling in anything the elder elf said or did that Merrill could see, it sounded like he might actually be regretful. Maybe even ashamed. "I wish you would not say 'us' when you refer to the slaves, vhenan," he murmured and Hal'lasean moved her arm around his waist. "It began countless ages before my time. It is not something even the Pantheon discussed openly. They would have had The People believe it was the natural order of things, that it had always been and always would be. My...understanding...is that it began two distinct ways. The first as a way to show support and curry favor from the Pantheon. The nobility would offer a child in service to a member of their choice, a sacrifice of intense meaning. That child would be raised to honor that member. At some point it ceased to be only the loved children of nobility who were given. Nobles began to purchase babes from poorer families so that they would not need to part with their own scions. The Pantheon became greedy, demanded more, demanded better, and so the nobility began to...selectively raise and breed their purchased children. They would not be given until adulthood, trained in some impressive skill or other, having already produced offspring that now belonged to the nobles." Solas took in a deep breath and looked up at the sky rather than at the Inquisitor or Cole or Merrill. "The other way, however, was a matter of war. When the nobility clashed over lands or power or a favored seat in the courts, it was the smallfolk who fought and died. It was the smallfolk who were captured and traded and kept for slaves. But by the time I was born, these things had long since been settled. They were considered how things were. No one spoke of how they came to be or why. It simply was."

"Why would we do that?" Merrill blurted before she could even think to stop herself. She was crying again, she could feel the tears streaming hot and horrible down her cheeks, but she didn't care. Not in the face of something like this, not when everything she knew was a lie, a story told by children to make themselves feel better, to make sense of the awful things that had happened to them. "Why would we do that to our own people! It doesn't make any sense! Why would we--"

"Because at the time, we hadn't suffered like we have now," Hal'lasean answered, her voice strained with what she must also be feeling about the way things had been. "Because the people in power had  _never_ suffered. Not really. They never went hungry or ran scared or fought for their lives against people who hated them just for existing. They hadn't had their promised lands stolen from them, their history stripped from them, they weren't hated for the points of their ears. All the nobility and the Pantheon knew was comfort and power. All they cared about was their own status and how to improve it. Just like every shem noble now. They might have been prettier, lived longer, known more, had magic beyond our comprehension...things might have been beautiful then, but they didn't care about The People suffering because they didn't know what suffering meant. Not really." She was speaking fiercely, a passionate fire burning in her words, and Merrill stopped in the path to stare at her. They all did. But no one looked more shocked than Solas, whose grey-blue eyes were crinkled at the corners with what looked an awful lot like hurt. "Andruil wasn't just known for the hunt, Merrill, but for her cruelty. She was  _sacrifice_ , not just the hunt. But it wasn't her sacrifice, it was never  _her_ sacrifice! She used to hunt  _people_! She used to hunt  _us_!" Solas flinched openly and Hal'lasean reached up to touch his face, her expression apologetic but stubborn. "I know you wish I wouldn't, but it's true, isn't it? You said so yourself. I would have been a slave. Not even a slave. I would have been useless because I have no magic of my own. There's no reason to deny it. It doesn't hurt my feelings. And you told us in Mythal's Temple that Andruil hunted people."

Merrill couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, couldn't even form worthwhile sentences in her mind. She couldn't believe what she was hearing, much less make her brain understand it. That couldn't be right, could it? Not Andruil. Not Mythal's own daughter! And when Hal'lasean and Solas spoke of Mythal, they spoke of her fondly, with respect, so how, how could it possibly be that the All-Mother had given birth to, had raised a daughter who would hunt...

"Fen'Harel's Teeth," Merrill gasped in realization. Solas was staring at her now instead of at Hal'lasean, but Merrill was too overwhelmed to wonder about the attention. She felt like she was drowning. Drowning in nothing but pure mountain air. When Merrill didn't answer his unasked question, Solas turned back to Hal'lasean.

"A Dalish tradition," her cousin replied reluctantly, cringing as she spoke. "It's rare and most clans don't actually practice it. I can't remember the last time anybody actually  _did_ it, but it's reserved for...particularly terrible shems. Harmful shems. They're dressed in breeches that have...nails driven into the legs, their hands are tied, and then..." Hal'lasean's brow knit with distaste, "Then they're given a hundred-count head start and hunted. It's barbaric. It's..."

"It is what Andruil devised to punish..." Solas let out a hard, shaky laugh. "It is what she devised for her slaves when the Dread Wolf grew tired of her company and left her bed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Asha'bellanar" - "the woman of many years"  
> "Asa'var'lin" - cousin, female


	34. Chapter 34

"The Dread Wolf?" Merrill repeated dumbly. No one had bothered to start walking again, so they stood in a messy little circle in the hunting trail that led from the main road to the cave where they'd found the children. The cave that apparently also housed an Eluvian. "Andruil and the Dread Wolf?" She wasn't sure why the thought of the two gods -- no, not gods -- together should be more difficult for her to accept than any of the other things she had heard so far today, but for some reason, she couldn't imagine it. The Dread Wolf was a wolf! He had six red eyes and sharp fangs or else white fur and blue eyes and it made no sense whatsoever for the tricky Betrayer to ever be welcomed into bed by Andruil, the Huntress, protector of animals, creator of Vir Tanadhal. She had always seemed so...virginal. So pure! She had never taken a husband like her sister Sylaise had. But then, what did Merrill actually know about any of this? Nothing. She knew nothing. She knew less than nothing. Because the Andruil Merrill thought she knew did not hunt her own slaves, her own people. 

"He was young," said Solas, as though the question was about how the Betrayer could have lowered himself to bed the Huntress and not the other way around. "He was a young fool and he had lost his way. He regrets that time keenly even now."

"Even now?" Merrill echoed, too stunned by each new revelation to even really take the time to consider that she sounded like one of those birds at the shop in Hightown that could learn to speak certain words. Hawke and Isabela were always trying to teach them to say filthy profanities. Before Isabela took the Qunari relic and ran, leaving Hawke to clean up the mess. Leaving the people of Kirkwall at the mercy of the Arishok. So many died, Hawke nearly among them, and for what? Hawke made it clear she would protect Isabela if she stayed. But instead Kirkwall paid the price. There was no more trying to teach the window birds to curse after that. Hawke hadn't had the heart for it. "What do you mean 'even now'?"

Hal'lasean had turned Solas to face her so she could stroke comforting hands down his neck and chest, so she could run her fingers over his scalp and ears. For all his face was unreadable, his body language spoke volumes, head slung low, shoulders hunched, barely able to meet his lover's eyes. But at Merrill's question, he let out a soft sound in his throat like a scoff. "Did you think Mythal was the only one still in this world? Your people call Fen'Harel the Betrayer for locking away the very beings who most hurt the Elvhen and tell your children to fear him lurking in the dark by their camps as though _he_ were the monster who might hurt them for sport." There was a surprisingly sharp edge to his voice, a hint of bitterness that baffled Merrill, and she opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Cole spoke first. 

"It hurts him, the way the truths got all twisted up, how The People hate the Wolf," the boy whispered to her. "It wasn't always like that, he remembers when slaves would run to the Wolf for help, for freedom, for sanctuary. He remembers when the Wolf was the only word spoken by a people without voices and that word sounded like hope. Now it sounds like fear and superstition and it feels like leggings filled with nails, like watching the Huntress torture in the Wolf's name because the Wolf found his purpose and it wasn't her, even though she didn't love him, couldn't love anyone, and still she punished him for leaving, punished _them_ because they were his purpose."

"Cole," Hal'lasean warned him gently when Solas had touched her shoulder and taken off down the path ahead for space to breathe and think. Merrill was only jealous she hadn't thought to do so herself first. The trees were leering at her, it seemed, the path jolting sickeningly beneath their feet, even though nothing had changed. Nothing had changed but everything had changed.

The boy deflated at the Inquisitor's unspoken command to stop and this time Merrill squeezed his hand before letting it go and stepping away herself, pressing a palm to the nearest tree and bending over with her other hand braced against her knee so she could try to breathe, try to calm, try to stop the sudden lightness of her whole body, like she might float away because the only thing tethering her to the ground had apparently been incorrect stories of Dalish gods and now she would get swept up by the next strong wind and end up in the Amaranthine Ocean bobbing like a cork.

"I still..." Merrill told her feet but loudly enough so that she could be sure the other two elves would hear. "I still don't understand. How...how could the All-Mother raise a daughter who would...how...?"

She had expected that if anyone answered, it would be Hal'lasean or Cole, but it was Solas instead, Solas, who had turned around on the path ahead with his brow pulled low over his stormy eyes so that even though his face was mostly still neutral, when Merrill finally managed to straighten up again, she found him irritable and snarling. "Mythal was not the only parent in Andruil's life. You forget her father was Vengeance himself, Elgar'nan, whose fury could be tempered only by his wife and even then only after he had used most of it up. It was said that each time Elgar'nan lost himself in his rage, he could not come back to himself without first destroying something beautiful. Mythal often said that most of her justice was delivered to the victims of her husband's ire. Is it so impossible to believe then that Andruil and Falon'Din took after the All-Father? Of the three of them, it was only ever quiet Sylaise who seemed to be her mother's daughter." He let out a sharp laugh. "And even she would not stand up to her siblings when it mattered most."

That floating feeling Merrill had been experiencing abruptly changed directions until she felt like she must be falling down a bottomless pit, falling endlessly into a place where no one would ever find her, falling into what she imagined was probably the Void. Or at least a void. An abyss that felt like despair and confusion, an abyss that had never known air to breathe because her lungs were screaming for it. A hand pressed her shoulder, but when she jerked up in surprise, it wasn't Cole. It was Hal'lasean. Merrill was immediately nine years old again, spying on trysting teenagers from the clan with Lanaya when she felt a little hand tug at her sleeve. She had turned to find Tamalin there, round-eyed and chubby cheeked, a waddling toddler who had followed them all the way from camp despite the fact that they had left her asleep in a basket of clean laundry. Merrill was astounded she hadn't noticed the similarities between the Inquisitor and that little girl until she saw into Hal'lasean's dream. It should have been impossible to miss. Impossible. 

 _Is it so impossible to believe_...? Solas had demanded.

"Three of them?" Merrill blurted suddenly, asking it first of her cousin and then of her cousin's lover. "What about Dirthamen? Mythal and Elgar'nan had  _four_ children! Falon'Din and Dirthamen, Andruil and Sylaise!"

"A misinterpretation," Solas shot back as though they were not discussing everything Merrill had ever known. "Dirthamen and Falon'Din were what was known as twin souls, not biological twins. Vain Falon'Din was Elgar'nan and Mythal's only son. It is a relationship that humans might call kindred spirits, but the ties are stronger. It is more akin to two saplings who grow together until they are one trunk. Dirthamen was the son of a powerful noble family and was given to Falon'Din as a companion. They were raised to be closer than brothers, and though each professed to preferring women, it was common knowledge they were lovers. When Falon'Din ascended, as was the privilege of his birth, Dirthamen became his spymaster. His Keeper of Secrets. He ascended several millennia later, but unlike his husband, he did not ever truly feel that he deserved it. They were both wrong."

"I think I'm going to be sick," was all Merrill could think to say, and then she was, bent over against the tree with her hands on her knees, dry-heaving onto pine needles and underbrush. Hal'lasean's hand moved to her back, rubbing lightly along her spine with a flat, insistent palm. It must have been her anchored hand because Merrill felt someone else's magic pushing against her own, a calming, strong energy that encompassed hers like armor. She wanted to ask how her cousin, who was not a mage, could do these things, how she could control the anchor so deftly, and of course how she had opened that door in the Veil as simply as if she were moving from one room to another because she never had gotten the opportunity to find out. But her mind was reeling drunkenly already from talk of gods and slaves and vallaslin and she thought slightly hysterically that if she took in anymore new information her head might burst and spray bits of brainmatter all over the forest and her companions.

"Maybe that's enough for one day," her cousin suggested, but the thought that they might  _stop_ telling her the truth was quite suddenly the only thing worse than being told the truth, so Merrill dragged herself up again, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand, and braced herself on Hal'lasean's shoulder. 

"No," she argued, the rawness of her throat making her hoarse. "I have to...I have to know. I--" She shook her head to clear her thoughts, but only managed to toss them around a little more. "You  _knew_ \--  _know_ \-- you know the gods-- the Pantheon...you know them personally?! All of them?!"

Solas glanced uncertainly at Hal'lasean, who hesitated, frowning at Merrill as she considered whatever it was they were debating. If they tried to deny her the answer to her question, Merrill thought she might snap and try to force it out of them, throwing trees and stones and mind-blasts and anything else she could conjure until her mana ran dry or a hole opened up beneath her and swallowed her completely. One of those.

"I knew them," Solas agreed, the danger finally leaving his voice so that only softness and a pensive frown remained. "But it was many ages ago. I have not seen them since the Dread Wolf locked them away to free The People."

"H- _how_?!" Merrill gasped. Her voice was shrill with her panicked questioning now, but she didn't care. She couldn't care even if she wanted to. There was so much else going on. "Who  _are_ you?!"

They shared that look again, that unsure, do-we-tell-her look that Merrill was beginning to absolutely loathe. She opened her mouth to tell them so when Hal'lasean cleared her throat beside her. "He was one of them," she said carefully, like handing over a fragile relic of Halamshiral. No, not Halamshiral.  _Arlathan_. Elvhenan! The blighted Pantheon! Sweet wounded Ghilan'nain! What would her Keeper say?! Her mind was in a frenzy as she tried to make sense of what she was being told. If he was one of the Pantheon but not Elgar'nan or Dirthamen or Falon'Din or Fen'Harel, what did that leave? Who did that--

" _June_?!" Merrill squeaked.

Solas let out a dismissive snort. "Hardly."


	35. Chapter 35

"There were more Elvhen in the Pantheon than the Dalish remember," Hal'lasean explained as she continued to pet her cousin's back. It was soothing, made more so with the magic of the anchor expertly maneuvered by the elven hunter the shems called Herald, but Merrill still felt ill, still couldn't quite figure out which way was up or how to stop the forest from whirling around her. "Even the beings we know as the Forgotten Ones were apparently once part of it."

"I think..." gasped Merrill, gripping Hal'lasean's upper arm just to keep herself standing. "I think that's enough truth for one day."

Because her heart had soaked with doubt and fear until it burst, she was sure it must have popped like a too-full wine bladder, spraying half-truths and ideas of angry, petty gods all over her insides, sending little barbs of poisoned history ripping through her Dalish organs until she was nothing but bleeding shreds on the inside. She had a headache. Oh, she had such a headache. Merrill was at odds within herself, overcome with the urge to run screaming or to attack Hal'lasean and Solas until they took it all back and swore it was a trick or to bury herself in the dirt and pretend to be a daisy, to grow toward the sun until the snows began in the next few weeks and then freeze and die never having to think about how her whole life was built on a foundation of badly read relics.

"She doesn't mean it," Cole was insisting to Solas, who stood further along the path watching the two women with an impassive frown. "She needs to know everything, it's the only thing she's ever wanted, to make The People great again, only she never thought it would cost so much and she almost gave up, but she's remembering now, remembering why she has to know, why she and Hal'lasean have to  _make_ the Keepers listen!"

"We're looking for proof," her cousin told her, as though Merrill herself had said those things, as though Cole were just a mouthpiece. "We're gathering all that we can. I have my clan hopefully coming to Skyhold next summer. My Keeper and her First are both forward-thinking for the Dalish and I want to start with them." She flushed and touched her cheek where Merrill assumed her vallaslin must once have been. "We have to win them over to represent our interests properly at the Arlathvhen because the other Keepers won't give a fenedhis about what a couple of bare-faced flat-ears have to say about Elvhenan, even if one of them is the Inquisitor. Maybe even because one of them is the Inquisitor."

"I won't be able to help," Merrill realized like the teeth of the Dread Wolf sinking cold and evil into her neck. Or cold and not evil. If he was even a wolf. Creators, everything was a mess! "The clans think I murdered Keeper Marethari. They won't listen to anyone who keeps company with me, vallaslin or no!"

Hal'lasean exchanged a look with Solas that Merrill couldn't quite make out, but maybe, just maybe, there was something in it like fond amusement? She recognized it from a lifetime of being not quite on the same page as the people around her. Varric, Bethany, and Isabela especially had worn it while Merrill was around. So there was something she wasn't getting then or something she thought she had gotten that was off the mark just a little. 

"We know," Hal'lasean sighed, her hand still on Merrill's back. "There are several things you could do that would help us help The People, though. And you can choose whichever of them makes you happy. For as long or short a time as you want."

What could she, Merrill, Dalish exile, possibly offer the Inquisition that they didn't already have? That they couldn't get elsewhere? That couldn't be obtained from any other Dalish mage? For the hundredth time since leaving Skyhold this morning, Merrill worried she was being played. But for Varric. But for Varric's trust in these people. And Varric loved a good prank, but he wouldn't let her hurt so much just for a trick. Just for a laugh. And he wasn't even here to laugh at her. And he wouldn't. And he trusted them.

"What is it you want me to do?" Merrill wondered anxiously, very aware of how high and breathy her voice had become. How much she sounds like a child, especially beside her younger cousin.

"There's a little Dalish boy in the infirmary right now with his sister," began Hal'lasean. Alarel's scared face came immediately to mind, gaunt with starvation, trembling from the cold. "He's going to need someone to teach him Keeper magic. And if all goes according to plan, there'll be more like him coming to us. Mage children who don't belong anywhere else, who need to be taught and loved. There's going to be a school up here in the mountains, an Inquisition school, hopefully with Chantry and clan blessings, and while we'll teach whoever comes to us, it's the elves that will need us most. They should know shemlen magic as well as the kind our people have passed from Keeper to First for generations. A place where magic is treated as a gift and the mages are free to come and go as their families wish." 

Merrill's eyes had filled with tears again, sometime between the words 'don't belong' and 'loved'. Or maybe as early the very idea that she might teach someone else the magic Marethari had given to her. Whenever it began, they were falling freely by the end. "I swear, I don't usually cry this much!" she cried. And Hal'lasean breathed a sympathetic laugh.

"It's okay. I've done my fair share of crying over these things as well." She laughed again, more brightly this time, and glanced at Solas, whose face hadn't moved that Merrill could see in some time. "You should ask Varric when we get back about all the sobbing I did into my cups over my vallaslin."

Solas looked down at his feet then and Cole was suddenly beside him, murmuring inaudibily. Merrill didn't need to hear what was being said, though, to recognize what it meant: Solas was hurting. He was hurting because Hal'lasean had admitted to hurting. And Solas was the one who had told her the truth in the first place. Solas was the one who removed her cousin's vallaslin. And apparently Solas was a god. Or whatever being in the Pantheon meant he was. Whichever one of them he was. It meant he truly hurt because the Spirit of Compassion was tending to him. Yet another sign that this, all of this, was real. That they spoke the truth. 

Merrill shoved the hand that wasn't gripping Hal'lasean across her face to dry the tracks of her tears away. "You said I could do several things?"

"Oh," replied her cousin with surprise. "Well, if you don't want to--"

"No, I didn't say--"

"Oh! Oh, okay. Well," she glanced at Solas then, who finally stepped toward them, his hands clasped neatly behind his back. Cole shadowed him, watching the whole thing with a sort of swaying motion even in his stillness. 

"I will need assistance in my tasks over the next several months. You would be my liaison within Skyhold. I will of course report directly to Hal'lasean in the Fade, but she is a busy woman indeed and will not always be able to meet me should I have an artifact to give into Inquisition protection. And though I am stronger than I was when I awoke from uthenera, the prison that holds the Pantheon also keeps me from accessing the majority of my power. I cannot be everywhere at once and there are many elven ruins to study and search, many Eluvians still to fix. You would be here to do research among my books and those of the Inquisition's extensive library on subjects of interest. You would give me what information you find in the Fade. You would also sometimes need to meet me in the Crossroads -- the place between Eluvians -- to give me new supplies and take what physical proof I've found. And occasionally I would need you to visit ancient temples throughout Thedas to do rubbings or copy text. You would answer to me and of course to the Inquisitor, but the things you could learn...things beyond the ken of any mortal elf."

If the first offer made Merrill cry, this one had her actually salivating, her mouth watering like a mabari scenting meat. Varric had told her in his letter that the trip would be more than worth her while, but she had never imagined... _this_. So much truth, so much painful, awful, wonderful truth, history beyond her wildest dreams, the history of The People waiting at her fingertips when she wanted it, an ancient Elvhen god (or whatever he was) who would willingly answer her questions and show her things no Keeper had ever seen, a school -- a whole school! -- of Dalish children eager to learn elven magic from her, of all people, and she could teach them that it wasn't all black and white, that there were infinite complexities within magic and the Fade...

And of course Varric hadn't had any idea that he would be reuniting a little piece of her family. A little piece of Alerion and a life she had given up for lost long ago.

"Those...those both sound...oh, Creators, they both sound wonderful!"

Hal'lasean laughed again, her face full of hope. "You can do both. We'd love for you to do both. The People need your help, asa'var'lin. We need your help."

But Marethari's voice was in her head, warning and stern. Da'len, do not be naive. Find out who he is. Do not agree to a deal when you do not know the price.

"I..." Merrill's cheeks turned pink with embarrassment. It felt terribly rude to ask a god for his name. "I want to help, but first I-I'm sorry, but I must know who you are. I can't decide until I know."

They shared that look again, the Inquisitor and her lover, the one that meant they were deciding things for her, keeping their secrets. Secrets. Dirthamen? Could this be Dirthamen? Not June, certainly not Elgar'nan or Falon'Din. Hal'lasean did say there were more than the Dalish remembered. Perhaps he was one of those. She searched him for clues while they decided, taking in his long elven overclothes and his heavy foot wrappings, the oiled cloak wrapped around his pack. The line of a pendant that hung beneath his robes. That pendant. What had it looked like? A piece of a skull, wasn't it? A jaw bone! Yes, that was it. Falon'Din might wear such a trinket. But no. What kind of jaw was it? Not elven certainly. Hal'lasean's grip on her elbow tightened protectively. They had decided then. They were going to tell her.

"Da'len," Solas ventured gingerly, "I am the one who locked away the Pantheon to free The People." Merrill's heart stopped. Just stopped working entirely, she was sure of it. "I am not what your people think me. But I am He Who Hunts Alone." She was going to die, out here, like this. With the Wolf smiling almost sweetly at her cousin. "I  _was_ He Who Hunts Alone. Now I am simply Fen'Harel." Merrill couldn't breathe. Her vision swam. "The Dread Wolf."

"She's going to faint," Merrill's disconnected head heard Cole telling them.

"I am not!" she found herself arguing. Who made her mouth move? She hadn't. Must have been the Dread Wolf.

Wolf jaw. That's what the pendant was. The Dread Wolf had knocked up her cousin. Little Tamalin would have a litter of Dread Puppies. Merrill giggled.

"You know, I think I might faint after all."

Merrill fainted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Uthenera" - "the long sleep" (approx.)  
> "Asa'var'lin" - cousin, female  
> "Da'len" - child


	36. Chapter 36

"Well," laughed Hal when Merrill's unconscious body was laid out gently on the forest floor, "I think that went pretty okay, all things considered."

Fen'Harel and Cole had come to stand over the two women, both of them frowning seriously at the way Merrill's mouth hung open. Her lover placed his hand on her shoulder, in part because it allowed him to lean over her for a better look, but Hal also suspected that he was a little shaken and mostly just wanted to be touching her. So once she had her scarf tucked under Merrill's head, she leaned back into his legs and placed her hand over his.

They were silent for a long moment, watching her cousin breathe, and then Fen'Harel said dryly, "I had been about to suggest she sleep on it."

"She was very upset," Cole whined worriedly, looking up from Merrill's strangely restful face to seek answers from Hal and Fen. "It wasn't a physical hurt but she fell anyway."

"That happens sometimes," Hal replied with the same patience they always tried to use with Cole. "Haven't you noticed that when someone's really sad or scared or hurting they feel it physically in their bodies?"

"Yes," Cole mumbled thoughtfully.

"Just because something isn't a physical wound doesn't mean it can't act like one. And the only thing someone has to do to faint is to stop breathing, which is a fairly common reaction to unpleasant emotions. When we're breathing deeply, we're open to whatever we're feeling, so when something upsets us and we don't want to feel it, we often tell our bodies not to breathe without even realizing it."

Cole's eyes went wide behind his curtain of hair, under the shadow of his hat. "You weren't breathing after your nightmare," he said like a pupil proving he understands the subject. Fen'Harel's hand tightened on her shoulder as she flashed Cole a proud smile that turned his sickly pallor a slightly healthier shade. Hal grinned. "Cole, you're blushing."

He gasped in delight and turned his perpetually red-rimmed eyes on Fen'Harel for confirmation. Hal couldn't see it, but he must have nodded because Cole gasped with delight and his whole face became his joy. "I wish I could see it!" he exclaimed. "Is it like yours, Hal'lasean?" She turned pink just at the thought of her own easy blushes. It was a new thing for Cole, something that had fascinated him when others did it but that he only had recently realized was something he could do too. So he had requested they point it out to him should they notice it. It made him marvelously happy, so of course they were only too willing to oblige.

"You blush more like Dorian," decided Fen'Harel after a moment's consideration. "The tone of your skin is more yellow and brown than white and pink as Hal'la's. Her skin shows color well." He smirked behind her; she couldn't see it, but she could hear it on him. "There is only one other person in the Inquisition who blushes as easily or as brightly as Hal'lasean, and that is our faithful Commander." He paused. "Though I imagine Merrill could very well become reigning champion."

"She's welcome to the title," grumbled Hal. "I've got too many to remember as it is."

Fen'Harel chuckled. "Try being a god."

"You can't just claim godhood any time it wins you an argument and then deny it the rest of the time!" Hal complained laughingly, twisting around to scowl up at her amused vhenan. 

"Who am I to go against the will of The People?" Fen'Harel replied lightly, fighting his smirk.

"Then shouldn't you be running around eating naughty children and deflowering pretty Firsts?" she shot back.

His grin was purely wolfish. "I prefer to deflower pretty hunters."

Hal scoffed with a toss of her head. "Please. My bloom was plucked long before the Dread Wolf caught my scent." It was her turn for a wicked grin. "And I thought your preference was for deflowering the pretty Hunt _ress._ "

Fen'Harel breathed in a hiss through his teeth as if she had wounded him, but his blue eyes were alight with mischief. "I am ashamed to admit that the Huntress' bloom -- if she ever had one -- had been trampled millennia before I ever had her by the sheer volume of her bower traffic. She may have loved the chase, our Andruil, but she was always easy prey."

"You're awake," Cole observed with a smile, his attention on Merrill rather than the playful couple. The other Dalish woman groaned and pressed a hand to her head as if checking to make sure it was still there or perhaps from long years of making sure her head wasn't bleeding after being knocked out in violent uprisings. 

"Merrill," Hal greeted softly, pressing the backs of her fingers to her cousin's forehead. "How do you feel?"

"I had the funniest dream," her cousin mumbled. "I was helping you give birth as my mother had once helped yours, only instead of a baby, you kept pushing out adorable puppies!" She laughed deliriously, but it quickly collapsed into a confused frown. "Dread Puppies," she murmured, and then she started laughing again. She laughed and laughed right up until she started to sob.

"Merrill," Hal sighed sympathetically, taking her cousin's hand in both of hers. "Please, asa'var'lin, it's okay. Everything's okay."

The girl on the ground swung wildly from her racking cries back to hysterics and then to some mix of both. "It figures, doesn't it! It just figures, all this time, everyone telling me don't fix the Eluvian, Merrill, leave it alone, Merrill, don't talk to spirits, don't use blood magic, that's not the way, not the elven way, that's the cursed path, da'len! I didn't listen, I wouldn't! I never-- I never listened and now look where it's lead me! Alone in the forest with a spirit in a dead shemlen like a suit of armor, making deals with the  _Dread Wolf_! And my cousin, my own blood, the little girl whose hair I used to braid with flowers and halla bells has taken the Betrayer to her bed like a story about a wayward First! Keeper Marethari would  _die of shame_ if she could see me now!" Merrill went abruptly quiet, sobering out of laughter and tears. "If she weren't already dead. Because of me. Because of  _this_! Because I'm too stubborn to admit that I might be wrong! And now, of course, of course! The one person who has all the answers I have ever wanted is finally standing here before me, offering me what I most desire, only this time it isn't a Pride Demon in the Fade! No, it's much, much worse! It's the bloody  _Dread Wolf!_ "

No one said anything for some time after that; not even Cole mumbled errant thoughts under his breath. There wasn't tension in the air, but rather exhaustion. Everyone was so tired. So, so worn. And Fen'Harel was clutching her shoulder like a lifeline, holding onto her so tightly that she could see the careful mask of his expression without even looking, his jaw clenched as he coached himself back from saying something he might regret. 

"He freed us," Hal said eventually into the silence, not bothering to raise her voice much above the volume of the whispering leaves. "Fen'Harel gave up his entire life, his world, his power so that The People could be free of a Pantheon who enslaved us and tortured us for their amusements. He didn't know the prison he made and the power vacuum he left would mean that the Elvhen would be unable to fight off the Tevinter invasion. He saw that The People must be allowed to choose their own destinies. He may have betrayed the Pantheon and the Forgotten Ones, but he never betrayed The People. If anything, we have betrayed him by defiling his sacrifice."

"It was hardly a sacrifice, vhenan," Fen'Harel murmured. "What is a life of wealth and privilege built on the backs and blood of slaves? I was living a lie. Setting the Elvhen free was not a sacrifice. It was -- is -- Hellathen. It was righteous. I should have done it long before I did." His fingers trembled slightly on her shoulders and Hal pressed her back more firmly to his legs. "I should have foreseen..."

"You couldn't have known," Hal'lasean insisted sternly, turning to look up at the grim self-loathing of the man she loved.

The smile he gave her was so pained it broke her heart. "You would have known, my Dalish queen. You would have foreseen it."

"Stop," she whispered unhappily, gripping the hand he laid on her shoulder to pull herself to her feet so she could press against him, so she could look him in the eyes even if she still had to tilt her chin to do so. "Stop doing this to yourself, vhenan'ara. What you did was right. It's not your fault The People gave up the very freedom you bought for them the moment a new master arrived."

"If I had stayed--"

Hal quieted Fen'Harel the best way she knew how: by otherwise occupying his mouth.

"Enough," she breathed against his lips. "If you had stayed, they wouldn't have been free." 

He looked for a moment like he wanted to keep arguing -- he always did on this topic -- but she lifted her brows in soft challenge and he closed his eyes instead, leaning his forehead against hers.

"He really feels all that?" Merrill asked Cole from the ground behind Hal's back. "That's all really true? It isn't a trick or a lie?"

Fen'Harel's shoulders stiffened, but Hal pressed down on them with her hands, letting their energies mix and play. 

"He hates himself," Cole whispered uncertainly, because this was something he knew the Elvhen man didn't like him to speak aloud. But neither Hal nor her Wolf stopped him. "He thinks he only ever fails. He is not the god of rebellion, not the trickster in his own heart, but the fool god, god of good intentions, god of failure and mistakes. He had one purpose, he thinks, one duty, one purpose, The People, revas, revas, revas, but it is only abelas, abelas, abelas, only solas, solas, solas. He pays penance, he tries to atone, tries to undo what was done so long ago, but he is weak and he makes mistake after mistake after mistake, but through all of it he is somehow rewarded, rewarded with her, with the only spirit he has ever loved, rewarded with a happiness he feels he does not deserve but will take, will hold it in his arms while he can because she is a god too. She is his opposite in all ways, he thinks. Hal'lasean, goddess of creation and hope, and yet somehow she loves him of all people: Fen'Harel, god of destruction. God of loneliness. Until her. And now he believes she might have been the answer all along. What only he could tear down, only she can build anew. Mythal must have seen it, he thinks, must have known, must have noticed how brightly his halla shone. That's why the All-Mother gave her to him, gave him her power and his heart when she owned them both, because she knew what he -- foolish, prideful he -- was too frightened to see for himself. She is the answer."

Fen'Harel had opened clear blue eyes while Cole talked, watching Hal listen to his pain and his thoughts with that way of his that spoke of a deep well of feeling that was calm and dark at the surface but a rush of hidden currents underneath. She kissed him again and he relaxed against her.

"You know," Merrill sighed, "you could have just said 'yes' or 'no'."

"I don't understand," Cole replied, anxious that he had done something wrong.

"...Nevermind, Cole." The older girl went pensively silent while she watched Hal comfort the Dread Wolf. And then quite suddenly, and so loudly that the other two elves whipped around to find out what was wrong, Merrill let out a hard gasp. " _That's_ why everybody goes so queer when I say 'by the Dread Wolf!'" she exclaimed. When she laughed this time, it was only a little hysterical and there was no crying whatsoever. "I get it now! Oh, that's quite funny! 'By the Dread Wolf!' Because it's true!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Asa'var'lin" - cousin, female  
> "Da'len" - child  
> "Vhenan" - (my) heart  
> "Hellathen" - "noble struggle"  
> "Vhenan'ara" - "my heart's journey"  
> "Revas" - "freedom" (approx.)  
> "Abelas" - "sorrow" (approx.)  
> "Solas" - "pride" (approx.)


	37. Chapter 37

"You said you had proof."

Merrill had agreed to continue walking with them to the cave at least, to see the Eluvian, and to ask any questions she might have. Then, if she wanted to flee, Cole could show her safely back to Skyhold and her people. If need be, with Fen'Harel with them, they could compel her to forget. If it seemed like she might crack. Or if it seemed like she might want to warn the clans. Even though none of them would talk to her. Most of them likely thought her touched in the head already, so crying Dread Wolf would probably be ignored. Probably. But it was a risk they couldn't take.

The silence of the remainder of their walk had been tense, broken only by Cole, who occasionally flitted nervously from person to person trying to ease their pain or nerves. Sweet, helpful Cole. Hal made a mental note to spend more time with him, to teach him as she used to. There hadn't been much time for anything but Fen'Harel and Elvhenan and the Inquisition for two months now and with Varric's people staying in the fortress, the dwarf's attentions would be divided. Cole would be fine alone, but she didn't want him to be. He shouldn't have to be alone anymore than any other person.

It wasn't until they reached the entrance to the cave where Hal and Merrill had first seen Alarel that her cousin finally spoke. Merrill had been lagging behind, frowning distractedly at her feet or the trees or the back of Fen's shaved head. And because she hadn't been asking questions or even willing to listen anymore, Hal and her Wolf walked just ahead, their fingers entwined, reticent but together. Or rather, Fen'Harel was reticent and Hal willingly shared it with him. So at first the lovers didn't quite register that the Dalish mage had spoken at all.

"Asa'var'lin," Merrill said, louder, more demanding. Hal turned around in surprise. "You said you had proof."

"Of Fen'Harel?" she asked in confusion.

"I can't imagine anyone would willingly admit to being the Betrayer if it weren't so," reasoned Merrill. Hal felt her Wolf's muscles tense beside her and squeezed his hand. "Er, no offense, hahren," Merrill stammered, suddenly realizing how harshly her words had been taken. "You seem like a perfectly nice Dread Wolf. You don't even have any big, nasty fangs that I've seen. And...well, you do seem to love my cousin and she is having your..." Merrill gave a little self-amused titter. "Dread Puppy."

Fen'Harel turned to face Merrill with a very serious frown that made him look like a curmudgeonly old man. A handsome, adorable, sexy curmudgeonly old man whose disapproving scowl looked particularly kissable in its protectiveness. "You will kindly refrain from referring to my child so, da'len."

"Fen," Hal chided lovingly, and he widened his eyes at her. Was she not supposed to call him that around other people? He called her Hal'la in front of their friends all the time! Oh. Maybe he was just pouting because she wasn't taking his side. She kissed him sweetly on the cheek and came away with the half-smile she knew he loved, her teal eyes twinkling. "It's funny. And cute. I kinda like it."

He opened his mouth with an intake of breath in preparation to argue, but she rounded her eyes and tucked her chin and lifted her brows hopefully. And bit her bottom lip because she knew he couldn't resist that. His teeth clicked when he shut his mouth and his shoulders sank in defeat. But he gave his reinvigorated, grumpy attentions to Merrill with a warning narrowing of his eyes. "Never in mixed company." He sighed and softened and looked back at Hal before adding, "And  _try_ not to say it too often." His eyes widened again in horror. "Fenedhis, and never in front of Varric. Or Dorian. Or--"

"Obviously this is a truth that has to stay between us," Hal told Merrill earnestly, interrupting her love before he could list everyone in Skyhold. "I said there were no secrets this high in the Inquisition and I meant it. There aren't. I can't demand that you tell me everything of importance to our working together and I won't. But I make a point to be open and honest about everything in my life to the people who have my trust. The only people in all of Thedas who are not ancient Elvhen themselves who know the identity of the man we call Solas are Seeker Pentaghast, Lady Montilyet, Commander Rutherford, Dorian Pavus, Varric, Cole obviously, Divine Victoria, and The Iron Bull. No one else knows. We told you because you're Dalish and you deserve the truth, but also because Varric vouched for you. And because we need your help. You, Merrill, because of your knowledge of the Eluvians and your willingness to listen and learn. We both know it's not a common trait among our people." She smiled faintly. "And because you're my blood. There's a place for you here in the Inquisition, in the small circle of people from whom I keep no secrets, if you want it. But you don't have to decide anything today. There's proof all over Thedas. By helping Fen'Harel gather it and study it, you'll come to see that everything we've said today is true. And if you aren't satisfied even then, we can either find something that will satisfy you or you can go. But if you trust nothing else you hear from us, asa'var'lin, trust that our ultimate goal is to build a real home for The People that no one can take away from us ever again, and whatever your feelings about the stories you've heard of the Dread Wolf, that's what he wants too." She hesitated and glanced slyly at Fen'Harel out of the corner of her eye. "He wants to build a safe, free Elvhenan where we can raise our Dread Puppies in peace and plenty."

Merrill snorted and Fen'Harel huffed and Hal grinned. Cole just looked confused. 

"You delight in my misery," her Wolf grumbled and she beamed at him, offering a placating kiss on the lips this time.

"You're just so irresistible when you're sulking," she teased.

He frowned, but his heart wasn't in it. "I do not sulk."

"Fenris broods," Merrill offered helpfully. "Do you brood?"

"Oh yes," laughed Hal'lasean at the same time Fen'Harel snapped, "No!" Which only made Hal smug.

Her Wolf made a disgusted sound and glared at both of the women, but the edge was gone. "Are you certain the two of you did not grow up together? You behave as though you did."

For a moment, something tightened in Hal's chest, something unpleasant that made it difficult for her to breathe, and she watched Fen'Harel's eyes wrinkle with regret once he noticed the change in their shared magic. But along with that straining feeling in her ribs was something else, a warmth, a pleasing lightness. Something gooey but good. Like pudding. Family feelings pudding. Oh, maybe the baby was craving pudding. Chocolate pudding.

"Perhaps," Hal suggested with a slightly bashful smile for Merrill, "it's in our blood." Merrill's joy at the sentiment bloomed across her tattooed face.

"Chocolate," Cole said wistfully. "She wants chocolate pudding. The kind the shemlen cooks make with berries mixed in, craves it, creamy, rich, smooth like his kisses, cooled in ice."

Hal's mouth watered at her own thoughts spoken aloud. She blushed apologetically at her companions. "Sorry. That's been happening a lot lately."

"The Dread Puppy wants chocolate?" Merrill asked cheerfully.

"Apparently our Fenlin'Harel," which made Fen'Harel groan, "loves chocolate. And arbor blessing tea, for some godsforsaken reason. Oh! And citrus. And anything pickled." Hal let out a sigh. "But right now, all our fenlin wants is chocolate pudding."

Fen'Harel cleared his throat, his ears turning gently pink, and murmured, "I do have a few of those cakes I like in my pack, ma halla."

She smiled warmly at him and kissed him for his efforts. "Thank you, vhenan, but only chocolate will do, I'm afraid."

"I have chocolate!" Merrill chimed in. She was already pulling her pack from her shoulders and digging through it before Hal could even ask for a piece. "I saw a big brick in the kitchens this morning and I broke off a few pieces when no one was looking!" She produced a small, solid nugget of what looked to be very fine chocolate indeed.

"Oh," and Hal laughed her realization as she took the offered chunk, "they keep sending giant crates of this from Antiva. The merchants are courting our business. We've told them we only go through the Montilyets, but the crates of goods keep arriving. Help yourself to it. Consider it a bribe to convince you to stay."

"Can I have some?" Cole asked hopefully. "I like chocolates."

"Ma nuvenin, falon." Hal pulled a knife from her belt and used it as leverage to crack the chocolate into four jagged pieces, which she handed out to her companions. They stood together in easy silence while they enjoyed the expertly crafted sweets, Hal a little more vocally and enthusiastically than the others. And while they ate, Fen'Harel studied Merrill in that piercing manner he had, like he was dissecting her soul with only his eyes. In it, Hal read his reevaluation of her cousin, watched his esteem for her, his measure of her worth shift incrementally upward. Hal leaned against his side as she licked her fingers clean and he smiled, pressing his lips to her hair. And then when Merrill was busy closing up her pack and putting it back on, Hal surreptitiously pulled Fen'Harel's hand to her mouth and licked his fingers clean too.

He made a low sound in his throat that stirred that apparently tireless desire of her body for his. His breath fell warm on her ear. "I could compel them to sleep and drag you off into the woods, pretty hunter," he whispered. Her half-smile was wolfish.

"Why, Dread Wolf," she murmured in reply, "what big claws you have."

"The better to hold you with, my dear."

"Dread Wolf," she said again, her enjoyment clear on her face, "what big teeth you have."

"The better to eat you with, my dear."

Hal grinned wickedly, very pleased with herself. "Why," she gasped, "Dread Wolf! What a big fenedhis you have!"

His magic surged between them, and instead of answering, he cleared his throat and promptly (and gently) tossed her over his shoulder. She squealed and went bright red, but her Wolf turned his barely hidden feral amusement on Merrill and Cole. "You have much to consider, da'len. We would give you space and time to do so." He glanced at Hal, who made a show of fighting him, of trying to get down. "Fifteen minutes." Hal slipped her hand down the back of his breeches. "Half an hour. Cole, keep her safe." 

As Fen'Harel loped off into the woods with his prize over his shoulder, her laughing at his seriousness in this game, they heard Cole's voice from behind them to the stunned, scandalized Merrill:

"That was a lie. They're going to have sex. Can I have some more chocolate?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Asa'var'lin" - cousin, female  
> "Hahren" - elder  
> "Da'len" - child  
> "Fenlin'Harel" - "Dread (Wolf) Puppy"  
> "Fenlin" - (wolf) puppy  
> "Shemlen" - "quickling", human  
> "Ma halla" - "my halla"  
> "Vhenan" - (my) heart  
> "Ma nuvenin, falon" - "as you wish, (my) friend"
> 
> "Fenedhis" - wolf dick


	38. Chapter 38

Merrill let out a long, beleaguered sigh as she handed Cole another piece of chocolate. But she wasn't looking at the boy; her gaze was unfocused in the general direction in which the Dread Wolf had spirited away her delighted cousin. Merrill had never actually had sex, though not for Isabela's lack of trying, and so she didn't entirely understand how these things worked, but she was fairly certain the apparent frequency of the Inquisitor's activities with the Trickster was unusual at the very least. Possibly even unheard of. Not even the pirate had been so insatiable. Maybe it was a god thing. Or an immortal thing. She would have to ask Hawke. Not that Hawke and Fenris could compare, what with his snarling and prickliness the day following their rare couplings. Wait, could she ask Hawke? Hal'lasean had said no one else could know. But Merrill hated keeping things from Hawke! It made her so sad when she found out about the secret and she withdrew as she always did these days when she was feeling sorrowful about Anders. 

"She wants to bring all your people in," Cole mumbled from around a messy mouthful of melting chocolate. "Hawke and Fenris and Bethany. She had places for only the three of you first but then the other Hawke flew in and Hal'lasean sees a school of little magic-makers, a school that needs teachers, patient and kind and trustworthy. But his truth won't mean to them what it means to you, to both of you, daughters of the Dales, divided, downtrodden, destitute, driven from place to place because you're different. She'll tell them too if they decide to stay, no secrets, no secrets, not after Blackwall and Solas."

Merrill considered that for some time, frowning at the trees and then at her feet and finally at the cave just before them. "If they were hiding things from me," she wondered worriedly, "would you tell me? You don't have to tell me what they're hiding, only if they are. I don't want to be the fool First who trusted the Dread Wolf and hurt The People."

"He only loves a few things, has only loved them in all his time," murmured Cole. "His parents, dead and gone, Mythal, who gave him his life, the Fade, full of endless wonders, Elvhenan, the land of The People, The People, his duty, his noble struggle, beautiful and strong, her, Hal'lasean, his life, brightest spirit he has ever known." Cole smiled to himself, seemed to come a little more awake, more present and human. "And now the Dread Puppy."

Merrill smiled back at him, pleased that something she said could bring a little joy to such a pure being. But as his words began to register, her face fell. "Is that true? She's the brightest spirit he's ever known?"

"She's bright, bright, bright," replied Cole with a series of small nods. "Bright like looking at the sun on the sun, like fire in your eyes so you can't see anything else, only the shadows that come from being near her light. She makes the world backwards, form in darkness, light in all things. Used to be less, but then his magic in her, his magic from the orb making her more than what she was, brighter still, but green now, green and white, and then the little flame inside her, glowing, flickering like a firefly but stronger every day."

"The Dread Wolf thinks that?" Merrill gasped, and a sharp pang of jealousy speared through her, a need she hadn't known she had for someone to think of her that way. 

"He sees it," argued Cole, frowning at her, not quite understanding what she meant. "I see it too. These eyes don't see it as well as my eyes inside but she helped me be human, more human, and now I see her better, now it doesn't hurt to look at her bright, bright light."

"But how is that possible?" She imagined baby Tamalin, wailing in the storm, the infant who almost didn't survive her own birth. The vibrant, clever little girl with chubby cheeks and messy hair whose leggings were always needing patching. But she was no more or less special that Merrill remembered than any other child. She wasn't even a mage! So how...? "Did the mark on her hand change her?"

The boy shook his head. "The Wolf thought so at first. He asked her, did she think she had been different before. We hadn't seen her before the hole in the sky, but we would have noticed, wouldn't we, as all daytime things notice the sun, growing toward it without trying. But she got brighter after Haven." And now Cole was frowning, struggling to remember something that seemed to be just beyond his grasp. "She grew," he realized suddenly, looking up with such delight in his discovery that Merrill beamed at him. "When she almost died, when she made a choice, when she won or lost a battle, when she held a friend, when she forgave an enemy, when she fell in love twice, when she held up the sword, slayed the dragons, suckled from the All-Mother, always she grew brighter!" His eyes rounded with wonder. "Can that happen? Can all spirits get brighter?"

The Dalish girl gave a helpless laugh. "You'd know better than me." But then she was frowning again, looking toward where the couple had gone without really wanting to see them. "Is that good, that she's the brightest spirit even an immortal god has ever known? Or will she..."  _The explosion comes out of nowhere and Merrill is covering her head with her hands in the street, too shocked and confused and dazed to hide. Intense heat, ground lurching beneath her. The others are around her, her friends, their hands clasped over ringing ears. That's when it begins to rain. No, hail. No, neither, she realizes like her brain is far away, watching this happen to someone else, someone in a story who isn't real, it isn't hail. It's dust and stone, chunks of Chantry bursting into pieces all around them, heavy and hard, and then softer pieces of the Chantry, red and white and pink, funny shaped and squishy...no, Merrill observes from outside herself, those aren't pieces of the Chantry. Those are members of the Chantry. Well. Pieces of members of the Chantry._ "...blow up?"

Cole was staring at her wide-eyed and even more pasty than he had been only moments before. "So much pain," he whispered, and reached out with long fingers to touch Merrill's cheek. The Dalish mage blushed with embarrassment.

"That was a long time ago. I'm okay, really."

"But I feel--"

"Elgar'nan, I'm  _fine_ , Cole!" Merrill snapped, only to immediately regret it when he recoiled like a kicked puppy. "Oh, dear. I'm sorry, I-- I don't want to talk about it, all right?"

Cole's head drooped, completely obscuring his face behind that wide brim of his hat. Merrill got the distinct impression that's precisely why he wore it. "M'sorry," he mumbled. "I forget sometimes, forget there are hurts too hot to touch."

"You just wanted to help," Merrill agreed, reminding herself more than the boy. She hesitated and then reached for his hand. His fingers curled lightly around hers. "But will she...get hurt? Blow up or burn out?"

Cole's hat shifted upward as he lifted his chin to look worriedly at Merrill, so much hurt and fear in his expression that she squeezed his hand in hers. "I don't know," he whimpered. "I've never seen one so bright before. Not ever." His eyes moistened behind his hair. "I don't want her to burn out. She's my friend. My good friend. She remembered me."

"Oh," breathed Merrill unhappily, forcing a smile. "I'm sure it'll all be fine, Cole. Don't worry, all right? Really. Forget I said anything." When that didn't seem likely to happen, she shoved another piece of chocolate into the hand she held and groped desperately for a change of subject, one that wouldn't involve the spirit-turned-human looking so terribly, unbearably sad. But the only other thing in her head was the paralyzing choice that lay before her. So she asked the one question she thought he could answer for her: "Cole...do I want to stay?"

His brow knit together with an adorably intense focus and he frowned so seriously at Merrill's forehead that she began to worry there was chocolate on it. Cole certainly had plenty streaked across his face. "Your Keeper wouldn't want you to," he declared finally, mouth full of melted sweet. "That upsets you. But not as much as never knowing what else there is upsets you."

"I know," Merrill sighed, snapping off a corner of her remaining chocolate with her teeth. She leaned back against the nearest tree and stared gloomily at the cave. The cave that held the Eluvian like her ribs held her heart. "That's what frightens me."

"Sometimes when I'm scared," Cole offered helpfully, "Varric tells me...I'll never know if I never try."

"Varric does say that," she agreed. "But sometimes you try a thing and it ruins...well, everything. Sometimes you try it and it's awful and someone gets hurt and everyone hates you." They both fell quiet, frowning their thoughtful frowns, until Merrill blurted, "Do you think Fen'Harel did the right thing? When he locked the gods-- when he locked the Pantheon away?"

"He thinks he did," Cole replied uncertainly. "Underneath all the hate, hate, hate, underneath the guilt and hurt, he thinks it was his only choice."

"But what do  _you_ think, Cole?"

His chocolate-smeared lips fell open in dumb surprise and for a long time he sat there, staring at her, as if he had forgotten how to move his body's mouth to make words.

"I..." His eyes rounded childishly behind his yellow fringe. "I think..." He startled at the phrase, as if he had never heard it before. "I think..." and this time he whispered it like he was worried he wasn't allowed. "I think..." His eyes locked sharply on Merrill's, suddenly and powerfully present in a way she hadn't seen him in the short time she'd known him. "The People were hurting, hurting so much...he wanted to help them. He wanted to fix them. He wanted them to be free and safe and happy. Choices. He...gave them choices for the first...for the first time." Cole's face lit up with a toddler-like smile. "Like Varric and Hal'lasean gave me choices! Fen'Harel wanted I should stay a spirit, forgive the Templar, but I was angry, the most angry, and Varric and Hal'lasean let me be that, let me experience  _anger_ and it hurt and I hated it, but I  _liked_ it! And now I'm me, one thing, one thing that never was before but now is and she got brighter again and I...remembered. And was remembered! And I tried chocolate. I like chocolate. I'm learning to be people now. But I couldn't have been people ever, not once, not without choices." Something shifted in Cole's eyes, something that was unsettlingly like Anders coming back to himself after Justice reared his glowing head. But happy. Cole was ecstatic. "I think..." he began again, then gasped happily. "I think! I  _think_ _! I_ think!" The boy began to laugh and once he noticed he was laughing, that was so exciting that it made him laugh more. Which made him laugh more. And more. Until he was giggling helplessly, his face red and unable to catch his breath, which also seemed to make him gleefully happy.

This was what was happening when her cousin and Fen'Harel stepped out of the trees, flushed and satisfied, holding hands and picking leaves off of each other's clothing, out of Hal'lasean's hair. But they stopped short and gaped at the positively cackling spirit boy before them.

"Dammit, Merrill," sighed Hal'lasean. "You broke him!"


	39. Chapter 39

"It's breathtaking," Merrill observed, the awe from her voice reflected in her expression but not in the mirror in front of her. She had been vocally impressed by Fen'Harel's wards -- "If I assist the Inquisition, will you please teach me, hahren?" -- which seemed to both please him and make him morose, but now that the activated Eluvian shimmered and pulsed, she couldn't stop touching it. Varric had said it wasn't any more or less ornate than the one she kept at the alienage in Kirkwall, but the activation made all the difference for the deferential Dalish girl.

" _I think_ ," Cole began pointedly, engaging in what had quickly become his new favorite activity, "that it is... _pretty_." Hal hid her smirk behind her fingers, which she pretended were just by her face to check for chocolate (they had had to scrub Cole's face clean when he finally stopped laughing). "But it.. _.I think_...it needs more...bunnies?" The boy looked back at his friends to see if that was a correct way to think.

Fen'Harel rolled his lips together in amusement that he was no doubt hoping might come across as thoughtfulness and mild disapproval. He still had yet to admit that he was enjoying Cole's clumsy, endearing journey from spirit to person no matter how many times Hal called him out on it. In those moments, even if they were alone, she made a point to call him Solas. Sometimes 'ma solas'. He might flush a little in acknowledgement, but he never confessed. "Cole, the purpose of thinking for oneself is to have your own unique beliefs and opinions about the world around you. You may always ask others for their views, but ultimately the decision must be yours. Therefore," and here Fen'Harel had to glance away in his struggle to school his mask to solemnity, which only made Hal's smirk burst into a grin, "if you truly feel that the Eluvian's beauty would benefit from the addition of..." He fought his smile so hard it became a serious frown. "... _bunnies_ , do not be afraid to say so with certainty."

Hal turned her head toward her lover's shoulder and pressed her cheek to the back of it in the hopes of swallowing her laughter. Fen'Harel was doing much better with it now that he had locked into a gentle scholarly scowl, so he took particular pleasure in meeting Hal'lasean's gaze as though he found her behavior highly inappropriate. But his eyes never lied, not to her, and they both had to avert their eyes to keep from cracking.

Only Merrill appeared unfazed by the conversation and instead made a show of considering the carved Elvhen frame. "Do you know," she mused, "I think you might be right, Cole."

He gasped and beamed proudly from under his hat and both the Inquisitor and the god lost their mirth in consideration of the former First. 

"Asa'var'lin," Hal said earnestly, her appreciation clear in her face, "please tell me you'll stay and teach." Merrill hesitated, but the fact that she looked so conflicted boded well for the Inquisition, she thought. And maybe for her as well. "It would be good to have someone trained as a Keeper around while I'm pregnant too. The elven healers have all been very helpful, but they're not Dalish and it...just isn't the same. I would be grateful for a little bit of home." It was rewarding to see Merrill's struggle tip in her direction. Fen'Harel watched Hal shrewdly from the corner of his vision. 

"Oh, dear, well...I have to discuss it with Hawke and the others," she stammered, turning pink.

"You want to stay," said Cole with his lazy sort of confusion. "You don't need to talk to anyone, you're staying." He smiled. "I'm glad. _I think_ we're friends now."

"Cole," Hal murmured patiently, "sometimes even when you know what you want to do, you discuss it with the people you love because caring about someone means including what they want into your decision-making process. The decision is still yours, but friends and family like it when you run big things by them first. It makes them feel important and considered. Or they may have information you hadn't thought about yet that could change your mind."

Cole's brow pulled down exaggeratedly. "Thinking's  _hard_ ," he complained. This time Hal didn't bother to hide her grin, which was warm and fond. She reached under the boy's hat and touched his cheek, which made him blush. But he'd had enough stimulation for one day, so she didn't tell him.

"We must make haste if we are to have any hope of being seen by the Divine today," Fen'Harel reminded them politely. 

Hal grinned cockily. "A bald hobo apostate elf may not be of any consequence to the Chantry, but no one keeps the Inquisitor waiting."

He let out a half-hearted sigh, playful but quiet. "Once there was no one but Mythal and the All-Father who would dare to keep the Dread Wolf waiting. I do miss that."

"Perhaps if you dressed more fashionably," Merrill suggested guilelessly. Hal nearly snorted, which was the only reason Fen'Harel decided to play along, nodding thoughtfully at Merrill's suggestion. "In my youth, I kept long, impressive dreadlocks." He frowned a little. "I suppose I thought it was very clever: Dread Wolf, dreadlocks. Before that, I wore it in elaborate braids." That frown reversed into a self-satisfied smirk. "It had quite the effect, if I remember correctly, when I would unbind it in the bathhouses. Perhaps I should grow it out." He spoke lightly and pretended he didn't notice the silent giggling of his vhenan that had started the moment he mentioned dreadlocks. "As I care for you, Hal'la, I will of course include your opinion on the matter in my decision. What do you think? Should I give up shaving my head?" His eyes were the only hint of his internal smile he gave.

Hal rounded her eyes and struggled to match his seriousness with innocence and naïveté. "But Dread Wolf," she opined, "what will I rub for good luck?"

Only then did a lascivious grin spread slow and calculated across his mien. "I would gladly offer a few suggestions." 

Merrill let out a sigh. "We're never getting to Val Royeaux."

"Oh yes we are," laughed Hal. She narrowed her eyes at Fen'Harel and stepped behind him, shoving bodily until he finally humored her and allowed himself to be moved to the frame, then pushed through the mirror proper. When she was alone with Merrill and Cole, she gave a helpless shrug. "You know how gods are. Absolutely insatiable." As though she didn't purposefully provoke him. Merrill turned pink again. "You're next, asa'var'lin." Hal's eyes went wide with alarm the same moment Merrill's did and they both flushed now, pale cheeks and pointed ears flaring with color. "For the Eluvian, I mean!Not for--" She cleared her throat and turned to their spirit-made-boy. "Are you going back to Skyhold, Cole?"

" _I think_ I will," he said almost cheerfully.

"Stay safe," Hal murmured, smiling as she squeezed his hand. "We should be back tonight, but if we aren't back tomorrow night, have Josephine check in with the Chantry. Okay?" He nodded. "Thank you, Cole. I'll see you soon."

"Yes," Cole agreed. "Goodbye." He turned to Merrill and smiled. "Goodbye. You'll be glad you will most likely stay." And finally, he bent down and touched Hal's stomach. "Goodbye, Fenlin'Harel."

"Goodbye, Cole," Merrill offered sweetly. "And thank you. For talking to me."

"Varric says that's what friends do," the boy said simply. 

When he disappeared around the corner and out of sight, Hal gestured to the Eluvian with a flourish. "After you."

Merrill lit up like a chandelier at the Winter Palace. "I can't believe I'm actually going through!" She took in a deep breath, braced herself, and then looked worriedly back at her cousin. "You really trust him? The Dread Wolf?"

There was no need for Hal'lasean to consider the question or her answer, nor did she need to do more with her expression than to allow Merrill to see her truth: "Without hesitation. With my life. He's not a perfect man. He doesn't trust anyone but himself and he can be aggressively fatalistic, but he is selfless. And brave. And strong. And noble. And kind. He feels everything so deeply, even when he wants you to think he doesn't feel anything at all. Perhaps especially then." She smiled a little stupidly just thinking about it, her cheeks burning. "And I trust him."

Just not always his judgment, she didn't say. But then, whose judgment was always above reproach? Certainly not hers.

"I think I might stay," Merrill replied softly, and stepped through the looking glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Hahren" - elder  
> "Vhenan" - (my) heart  
> "Asa'var'lin" - cousin, female


	40. Chapter 40

Merrill had never in her entire life felt so... _alive_! She had certainly never seen anything so astonishingly beautiful. It was like stepping through a door into the distant past, into ancient Elvhenan, better and more and somehow not at all how she imagined it, how she dreamed it. It was not even particularly extraordinary compared to human buildings she had seen -- the Chantry (before Anders had blown it up) had had such lovely lines and grand gilded everything -- it was even a little spare, all things considered. More like an endless storage room full of exquisitely carved old elven mirrors, some of them absolutely enormous with wolves or dragons or animals she was fairly certain no longer existed springing seamlessly out from their frames. More than she had ever hoped might still lie abandoned throughout Thedas. Some of them stood dark and broken, corrupted with blight, but dotted throughout the entirety of the collection were bright, magic-imbued mirrors that, though not swirling with activation, did appear to each hold their own glow. 

And, oh, Creators, the magic! Magic like the air she breathed, like the blood in her veins, like a soft, familiar blanket on a cold winter's night, like friendly banter around a campfire, like a piece of advice given humbly you didn't even know you needed to hear. Magic like everything in the world singing in perfect harmony, including the things that made up her, Merrill, everything in tune, everything finally, finally... _belonging._ Her heart sang in a language familiar but forgotten and she stood in a transcendent stupor exactly where she'd stepped out of the Eluvian in the cave in the Frostbacks for what felt like an age but was probably more like a few seconds before Fen'Harel grabbed her hand -- the intensity of their awakened magics mixing nearly overwhelming her senses when their skin touched -- and pulled her forward and to the side so that Hal'lasean could spill out just behind her. It was only then she remembered where the other two elves with her, the not-actually-a god who had probably grown up in this feeling of connectedness and ease, and her cousin. Her cousin, Herald of Andraste, Inquisitor, who stepped through alert but not stupefied, which part of Merrill resentfully noted meant she probably did this all the time, did all these incredible things all the time so that they didn't thrill her anymore, if they ever did, and now instead of gawping like a nug in love at the place they'd called the Crossroads, her cousin, the brightest spirit ever -- apparently -- was paying more attention to her boyfriend. Her boyfriend, the Dread bleeding Wolf. How! How had little Tamalin become  _this_? Jealousy and pride battled for supremacy in Merrill's heart. Pride won, but jealousy didn't flee, just retreated to wait and watch. And as pride won, reason returned, until Merrill was mulling over whether or not Hal'lasean, who was not a mage, though she clearly had some strange power over the Fade and the Breach, could even feel the power of this place like she could.

The thought that perhaps she couldn't made her suddenly and pityingly sad, and she reached out instinctively to take the girl's hand. For a moment memory surged through her, practically tangible, a sensory ghost of a toddler's hand held in hers, clumsy and unaware, while Lanaya stood on the child's other side, holding her other hand. Baby Tamalin, just learning to walk, with halla bells tinkling in her permanently disheveled braids. They were singing. What song was that? One she knew, but one she hadn't remembered existed in a dozen years, maybe more. She hummed a little piece to herself there in the Crossroads, only vaguely conscious of what she was doing, and when her sound was not the only one picking through the melody, she let out a gasp of surprise. Hal'lasean was humming it too! They seemed to both notice at the same time because the song stopped and they were staring at each other, startled, still holding hands. It was only then Merrill realized that she could feel her cousin's magic through their contacted skin, feel it in much the same way she had felt Fen'Harel's--

 _Wait,_  she suddenly understood, _not much the same..._ exactly _the same!_

"Well," Hal'lasean was laughing, "if I still wanted proof, I guess I have it now."

"Perhaps I should have warned you," the Dread Wolf was saying thoughtfully. "A shared memory, I presume? The magic here is only just beginning to heal and reawaken from its long dormancy. In many ways, the Crossroads was in uthenera. It is like a hermit who has been away from civilization so long he had forgotten his manners and is so excited to connect with others that he intrudes where he should not." He laughed lightly. "The Crossroads is much like our Cole, now that I think of it."

That was fascinating and some part of Merrill was logging it away for future questions, but for now she was staring hard at her cousin and the Elvhen. "How is it that Hal'lasean is filled up with  _your_ magic, Dread Wolf?" It was almost an accusation. Almost.

They glanced at each other, but it wasn't like before when they were deciding her fate; this look was more like they were surprised by the question and trying to decide how to answer it.

"Corypheus opened the Breach with an orb, which is also what gave me the anchor on my hand," Hal'lasean began, offering the palm with its jagged mark for inspection, "What we didn't tell anyone who didn't absolutely need to know was that the orb was a foci, Elvhen-made, and full of power." She breathed in and gave a thin smile. Next to her, Fen'Harel's face had gone very still. Merrill couldn't help but think of what her cousin had said on the other side of the Eluvian, about how when he seemed not to feel at all, Fen'Harel was actually feeling deeply.

"The foci was mine," he said quietly, expression unreadable. "It is the key to the prison that holds the Pantheon." Merrill felt her heart shudder painfully in her chest. How? How was this Tamalin's life? "Corypheus should not have been able to use it. He had intended to take the power for himself, but Hal'lasean interrupted his ritual at the Conclave and the released magic -- my magic -- imprinted itself on her instead."

Hal slipped her anchored hand into Fen'Harel's. He let his gaze drop to consider where they joined and she continued the story. "When I killed Corypheus, I used the orb. It was destroyed and we thought all the magic inside it was lost." Her smile grew weary and wry. "As it turns out, it joined the anchor. All of it. And the only reason it didn't tear me apart from the inside was because I technically belonged to Mythal at the time. She kept me safe until Fen'Harel could heal me. And now..." She shrugged and let out a helpless laugh. "Now I'm not a mage, but I am full up with the Dread Wolf's magic. So I can't actually cast spells, but the Fade is, essentially, my bitch." Fen'Harel frowned sharply at her and she grinned. "Sorry. The Fade is a classy, beautiful noble lady who would never consent to be anyone's bitch and I respect her and her infinite complexities as is her due." He lifted his eyes upward as though asking the universe what he had done to deserve such a crass woman, but she was busy explaining things -- more things, so many things in just one day -- to Merrill. "Anyway, that's why I can pull and shape pieces of the Fade and the Veil, take things from the Fade, how we physically walked through it...and probably any number of other skills I have yet to discover."

"Is that...safe?" Merrill asked finally when her mind couldn't seem to grasp what was being said to her but she felt she should answer somehow.

Fen'Harel gave a harsh laugh and looked away, but it was Hal'lasean who shrugged again. "The truth is, we have no idea. Like Cole, my situation has no precedent that we are aware. But it seems okay for now, so I'm going to do everything I can while I'm able to point Thedas in the direction I want and hope that things are already in motion when and if my health begins to fail." Fen'Harel was carefully not looking at his lover. "Because if I die, that magic really will be lost, and we need it. We can't succeed in making Elvhenan feel like  _this_ without it."

"Why not?" Merrill heard herself asking without truly knowing why.

"Because she is the key now," Fen'Harel said sharply, openly chafing at the thought. "Because I cut myself off from the majority of my power when I created the Veil, but I made a key and now that key had changed forms." His voice dropped miserably, "It has become my heart. And the only way to undo what I have done is by _using my own heart_." His disgust at the notion was palpable, nauseating, and Hal'lasean interlaced her fingers with his, leaned against him, sought out eyes that he wouldn't lift to hers.

Finally, Merrill's brain caught up with something, grabbed onto it with all it had, and she felt her stomach lurch and her head spin. "You're going to release the gods?!"

" _No_ ," Fen'Harel insisted in a low growl. 

Hal'lasean gave a wan smile that did not reach her eyes. "But we may have to kill them."

Merrill didn't faint. Or retch. Or cry. She just stared. Stared unseeing, unresponsive, unable to process what she had heard. Kill? Kill the gods?  _Kill_ the  _gods_?! This. This was it. This was the trick the Dread Wolf was playing. Getting Hal'lasean to fall in love with him so he could use her to get to the gods so he could kill them once and for all! "You sound like the mad Tevinter magisters who brought us the Blight!"

"I am aware of how it sounds," he rumbled irritably. "But I assure you that I have never in my life hugged myself and giggled madly with glee." It should have been funny, to hear the Wolf himself say it so frankly, but he was clearly in no mood for jokes. "Nor do I have any desire to find any gods at all, if such a thing exists. My kin are not gods, da'len. They are people, fallible, flawed like any of us, but powerful, so powerful, and dangerous to all of Thedas, especially in its current state. I would gladly live my eternity cut off from the rest of my magic if there were a way to open the Veil without encountering the Pantheon. We have yet to find such a path, but we are looking. As we are looking for a way to avoid using Hal'lasean's power at all." He sighed and scanned the Crossroads before him. The Inquisitor rested her chin on his shoulder. "You need not believe me now. You will see the truth of the Pantheon's casual cruelty and wanton disregard for the lives of the very people they were meant to protect if you assist me here. You will see it with your own eyes." He took a breath and let it out slowly, regaining composure as the air left his lungs.

"We have time," Hal'lasean murmured to Fen'Harel, her brow knit with compassion. "It's a long way off yet and we may still find another way. Banal nadas, ma Fen."

"Banal nadas," he sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Uthenera" - "the long sleep" (approx.)  
> "Da'len" - child  
> "Banal nadas, ma Fen" - "Nothing is inevitable, my Wolf"


	41. Chapter 41

It was lucky for them that Merrill apparently nurtured the same insatiable curiosity Fen'Harel had found so pleasantly surprising about Hal when the mark was new and the Breach dominated the sky. She couldn't help but wonder if it was a family trait, if maybe her father had been forever asking questions the rest of the clan never considered. If Merrill's father had been the same way. And what about Lanaya? Maybe later when Fen'Harel had gone back into the field and the two of them were walking back to Skyhold alone, she could ask. It was disconcerting and more than a little frustrating to finally remember her life before but to have a small child's memories of those times, to have so little understanding of the world and the people that had surrounded her, all of it now gone, lost. Except for Merrill. 

Merrill, who was agitated and uncertain once again, but whose curiosity and the novelty of the Crossroads combined to cut through her suspicion and superstition like the arulin'holm she had just produced from her pack.

"I have not held one of these in many ages," Fen'Harel breathed with wonder and no small amount of ancient sadness. The magic of the Crossroads reverberated with the heaviness of his loss as he turned it in his hands, examining its blade and balance, studying the carvings on its hilt. "It is exquisite." He offered it ceremonially back to its owner. "Ma serannas, lethallan," he murmured sincerely, and Hal watched Merrill struggle openly with her pleasure at being called kin by one of the gods and her fledgling wariness as she tried to parse what game he might be playing. Fen'Harel frowned subtly at her turmoil and reached out to lightly touch her wrist so that she would look him in the eye. "Truly."

Merrill hesitated long enough that she finally just decided to concentrate on carefully rewrapping the blade and tucking it lovingly away in her bag. "Keeper Marethari said it had been with Clan Sabrae since before the Dales. That it's as ancient as Arlathan itself."

"Your Keeper was not wrong," he assured her, which made her eyes widen. "But you could not have used an arulin'holm to do all this." He gestured to the Eluvian before them, much the same as the one through which they'd come, but without that soft glow that accompanied the active-but-not-activated mirrors that spread around them like constellations. This was Merrill's Eluvian in the alienage of Kirkwall, she had gasped only moments before, and had forgotten temporarily that she was supposed to be watching the Dread Wolf with fear and mistrust as he engaged her with questions about where she had found it, how she had purified the broken shards and what steps she had taken, her thought processes that led her to finally do what no mortal elf should have been able to do: repair it.

They fell into amicable discussion of all the things Merrill had tried and what discoveries she had made to finally return the mirror to a seamless, solid form. Fen'Harel was obviously interested, clearly impressed, or at least those things were obvious and clear to Hal. Merrill only seemed to notice when he complimented her. Hal stood just off to the side, carefully tending the sprouting weeds of her quiet jealousy. Her own magic and the ability to wield it were the only things she would never be able to share with her vhenan. It had never bothered her when he had argued theory and semantics of casting with Dorian because it had never felt like this. Dorian was no elf, so Fen'Harel had never looked at him like this, like he had discovered a thrilling glint of hope in what remained of The People. It was a look that had heretofore been reserved only for her, but there was something extra in it...his passion for discussing magic with Dorian joined with the way he looked at Hal in the beginning like she was constantly impressing him. It was different and more and she wanted it for herself. And as much as she claimed that it didn't hurt her feelings to think she would have been less than nothing in Elvhenan, it did sting. It was hurtful and angering and unjust. She would have made a clever, cunning slave and a dangerous noble. 

...These thoughts were completely absurd. She had absolutely no desire to be a slave! So she didn't have her own magic; so what? She had the love of her Wolf without it. That was everything. She had  _his_ magic, which was everything and more. It was stupid to want him to hold her alone among all the elves in esteem. She found that infuriating about him, she  _wanted_ him to be impressed by Merrill. Hal certainly was!

A memory slid serpentine into her line of thought. It was just after they had claimed Skyhold as their own, after the man she knew as Solas had begun to look at her with something more than just respect and wonder and half-hidden desire. When he had begun to look at her in that heated, piercing way, like he was trying to puzzle out something that troubled him greatly. Like he was always just on the verge of saying something important. It was how he looked at her when he took her to Haven in the Fade, where he told her she changed...everything. And she had changed both of them with a long-wanted kiss. It was in the early stages of this look, on their first trip out from Skyhold, when Hal had intuitively, not entirely consciously, thrown out her anchored hand over a writhing, angry mass of Pride and Terror and Despair demons and drained their stolen lives away from them with one exhausting burst of magic. 

"How did you know to do that?" her apostate had asked her, breathless from battle and frowning at her as if she had done something wrong. 

"I...don't know," she had admitted with a nervous laugh. "I just thought...it's so much energy. It can't only affect the rifts." He had studied her with troubled eyes for so long and so intensely that she laughed again. "Say something, lethallin."

He had reached out to touch her instead, dabbing worriedly with his fingers at a gash that dripped blood from her hairline over her right ear. She winced and he smiled his apology. "You are in need of healing," he murmured finally, and set down his pack in preparation to offer it to her. It was really an excuse, though, to continue staring at her with that worried, conflicted expression. He didn't speak again until he was finished, shouldering his things and preparing to go see to the others. But as he turned away, he glanced at her over his shoulder thoughtfully. "It is a pity you are not a mage, Hal'lasean. I dare say you would be unstoppable with magic in your blood." He had given her a hint of a smirk that stoked a fire between her legs. "Though if anyone could be unstoppable without magic, it would be you, ma falon."

With at least two mages in her family tree and nothing but immortal mages in his, their child would likely be born with a powerful magic of his or her own. She looked forward greedily to the day when she could watch Fen'Harel teaching their little one the elaborate, ornate magic of Elvhenan, could already imagine how he would smile and laugh or coax and encourage or speak so reasonably with their fenlin about what might have gone wrong. She longed for that time desperately, but there was a part of her that worried she would be obsolete. That if their child was immortal and a mage, she would age and die possibly without ever even truly knowing the babe she birthed, or if their child was mortal and a mage, she would be left behind to tend the hearth while Fen'Harel and his beloved progeny shared a world she could never know, not truly, not as they did. They would humor her because they loved her, explain things to her patiently, demonstrate what they had discovered, take her to see an exciting find in the Fade, but the unspoken truth would still be there.

Hal'lasean had not felt inadequate, not really, not when in her right mind since the final defeat of Corypheus. Perhaps part of her always did, inadequate, unworthy, but always up to any challenge. She trusted herself to find a way through anything now, and if she didn't, well, she was not afraid of death. She still feared failing the people who depended on her, but it was not as immediate now as it once had been. No, she no longer felt inadequate. Except now, in this moment, watching Fen'Harel and Merrill, thinking about Fen'Harel and their child.

"It is impressive," Fen'Harel was telling Merrill, whose face was beet red. "Very impressive in fact. There were not many even in Elvhenan who could manipulate my Eluvians without years of training."

" _Your_ Eluvians?!" Merrill gasped. She suddenly looked as though she had met her hero. Or a god. A loved god, not the Dread Wolf.

He laughed airily at her shock. "Yes, da'len. June and I designed them together. It was why I was chosen to ascend. Why else would passage require my blessing?"

"Blessing?" her cousin repeated uncomprehending. 

He glanced at Hal for the first time in minutes and only barely narrowed his eyes with worry when he caught her slipping her fears behind the mask of a smile. "Vhenan, would you mind giving a demonstration?"

She stepped to the nearest glowing Eluvian in lieu of actual assent. "Fen'Harel en'an'sal," she told it. The glass immediately bloomed into life.

Merrill gasped again. "That's it?! That's all I've been missing?! All these years!"

Fen'Harel laughed again. "No; there is more to do to reinstate your mirror to the web of the others. Though I imagine given what your people think of me, you would not have come by the password easily." He glanced again at his lover, frowning slightly, and cleared his throat. "If you stay, I will teach you to fully repair the Eluvians. But for now, we must get to Val Royeaux."

"Oh!" said Merrill. "Oh, yes, of course!"

Fen'Harel turned toward the Eluvian that would let them out just beyond the city, but as he passed Hal'lasean, he paused to tilt up her chin and search her eyes. He didn't speak; he didn't need to. By now the look was enough. He was concerned for her, wanted to know if she was all right. She gave a brave smile, which meant that whatever troubled her was silly and small. He stroked his thumb over her cheekbone to promise her nothing that upset her was ever silly, and then they kissed, sweetly, comfortingly, his other hand trailing her waist.

"Ar lath ma, vhenan," he murmured when their lips parted. "I love you more with each new day. I will ache for you ferociously when we are parted." She smiled and kissed him again, and then he stepped toward the Val Royeaux Eluvian with her hand in his. "Come. Let us see a good friend and find your sister."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Ma serannas, lethallan" - "My thanks, kin"  
> "Lethallin" - kin, male  
> "Ma falon" - "my friend"  
> "Fenlin" - (wolf) puppy  
> "Da'len" - child  
> "Fen'Harel en'an'sal" - "the Dread Wolf's blessing"  
> "Ar lath ma, vhenan" - "I love you, (my) heart"


	42. Chapter 42

Of all the agents and various spies Leliana had installed in Skyhold and around Thedas by the time she left the Inquisition, she took only two of them physically with her. The first was a slippery young shemlen girl -- pretty and raven-haired with the ability to appear exceptionally common or so well-bred as to pass through the gentry of any country with a murmur of approval -- whose favorite part of her job was using what was between her legs to obtain information and whose name Leliana refused to divulge, but who the upper hierarchy of the Inquisition had taken to calling the Mermaid because, according to Varric, "there's something distinctly fishy about that girl." The other was an old bent-backed human man with salt-and-pepper hair and a perpetually decreasing number of teeth who seemed to always be everywhere you needed him before you even thought to need anyone. He was a kindly fellow who introduced himself as Dongle, which always made Sera snicker. Because apparently the only name Sera didn't find worthy of ridicule was her own.

It was Dongle who had been awaiting the little elven party outside the gate of Val Royeaux (though they had not sent word of their coming) and showed them through a hidden door that led straight from the city wall to the Grand Cathedral by way of surprisingly lavish underground passages. They moved in silence after the initially warm greeting (although Dongle glared at Fen'Harel as though he were Hal'lasean's disapproving father) and made quick time to their destination. The end of the corridor let out through a fireplace that swung around like something out of one of Varric's mysteries and deposited them in an ornate (even by Orlesian standards) antechamber where slept two cuddling nugs on a velvet cushion. 

"Please make yourselves at home. Her Worship will be with you shortly, Your...er...Your Worship," assured Dongle, bowing as he backed out the door to the impressive building beyond. The heavy gilded doors were slow to close behind him, letting in an uncomfortable amount of the Chant of Light from a frightening number of voices in the chapel proper. The two Dalish elves and the Elvhen looked at each other with expressions that ran the gamut from pointedly neutral to openly unsettled. Hal had had enough being worshipped by Andrastians to last her even Fen'Harel's lifetime. 

"I am reminded of the Arbor Wilds," he murmured into their silence. There was a tea pot and cups set out on a tray on the massive wooden desk, steaming and ready for them, and Fen'Harel took it upon himself to prepare the women cups of it -- after he sniffed it for foul play -- as he spoke. "There was a soldier there in the forward camp before we engaged the Red Templars ourselves. He kneeled before an altar to Andraste and spoke a piece of the Chant. Do you recall, Hal'la?"

Of course she recalled. She had searched for the man when the troops returned after Corypheus' defeat and found him on crutches with one leg lopped off messily above the knee. His name, he told her, was Hadron, and he had reverently thanked her for her blessing and for keeping him safe so he might see his true love again. As if she had done anything but abandon him and Cullen and the troops to whatever may have occurred after she and her party fled Corypheus through the Eluvian at Mythal's Temple. As if he were grateful that it was on her orders he had lost his leg. "I remember," Hal sighed, dropping into a chair by the empty hearth. 

Fen'Harel served Merrill and then Hal, letting his fingers linger on hers as he passed her possession of the fine porcelain and gifting her also with a knowing, gentle smile. He was aware of how her mind worked, of the shift in her eyes when she felt ill and guilty over the fate of those in her charge. He knew it because he experienced it too. And because he knew her. "He was young -- though older than you -- and afraid. We stood with you behind him while he prayed and though you still cannot abide the title Herald, you turned to Dorian and asked him to tell you the next words in the Chant." His smile turned thoughtful, his eyes earnest and unfocused with the memory. "I will never forget the look on the young man's face when you knelt beside him and finished the Canticle. The sound of Dorian whispering the words behind you so that you could comfort your soldier and inspire hope within him was...truly something extraordinary."

Hal flushed and gave her gaze to her cup, stirring in the milk and honey Fen'Harel had added for her as an excuse to keep from having to think too much on that strange day and the events that quickly followed it.

"You did that?" The voice was almost as familiar to Hal now as breathing, especially the way the voice could appear behind her when she least expected it. Hal was stealthy, but Leliana always seemed to know how to move in on someone when they were most distracted. She stood in the open archway to the next room with all the robes and finery of her new station, flanked by two city elves -- one a woman with dark red braids and large gray eyes, the other a man with blonde braids and a Dorian-esque cockiness to his movements. The only thing she was missing was that absurdly overtall hat, but Hal got the impression that was something her friend was only too happy to take off in private. "I should have liked to see it," Leliana added with a slow, pleased smile of welcome. "It was kind of you to pray with him. I know Andraste is not your..." She smirked slightly and gestured to the cup in the Inquisitor's hand. "...Cup of tea?"

Hal was on her feet immediately, setting her cup aside and taking an excited step toward Leliana before she remembered they were not alone. So instead she beamed broadly at the new head of the Chantry. It would have to do until they were alone and she could throw her arms around the other woman. "Divine Victoria," she murmured with a slight bob of her head. "The Inquisition has missed you."

"Inquisitor," Leliana replied with equal warmth. She gestured behind her then, first to the male who stepped forward with a flourished bow and a suggestive grin. "May I introduce some old friends of mine. This is Zevran Arainai, formerly of the Antivan Crows and current freelance assassin as well as incorrigible rogue." He waggled his brows and Fen'Harel sniffed. But the red headed elf was already stepping forward, holding out her hand to Hal with a battle weariness that she immediately recognized. It was the same she saw in herself in the mirror, in Sparrow Hawke, and in most of her saner companions. So of course she knew without much thought exactly who this was. "And this is..."

"The Hero of Ferelden," Hal said with only a hint of wonder in her voice. "Warden-Commander, it is my honor to make your acquaintance."

The Warden looked distinctly uncomfortable at the praise and shrugged helplessly. It was only then that Hal realized this woman that Cullen and Leliana both spoke of with a tightness in their voices was only barely older than Merrill. "Maker's breath, nobody calls me those things anymore."

"Not to your face," countered Zevran merrilly.

The Warden rolled her eyes. "My name is Hemlock Tabris." Her smile was mostly just for show. "My mother either had an unfortunate sense of humor or an uncanny knowledge of the future. Either way, you can call me Hem. I probably won't answer to anything else."

"Fine then," Hal agreed with a smile that actually did mean something. "You can call me Hal. And this is Solas and my cousin Merrill." She hesitated and gave Leliana a shrewd half-smile. "Does Cassandra know you've been in contact with the Hero of Ferelden all this time?"

"Of course not," Leliana laughed. "I saw how she exploded at Varric after Hawke appeared. I don't have a death wish."

"Well, now you're Divine, so she can't touch you," Hal reasoned with a grin.

"As always, Hal'lasean, you make an excellent point."


	43. Chapter 43

Since the introductions had established that there was no need for too much propriety, Hal wasted no more time wrapping Leliana into a tight embrace. They both let it last for some time, clinging to one another as if they could share all they'd been through in the months since they parted via osmosis. There was worry in Leliana's hold, left over no doubt from hearing of Hal's two-week coma and being able to do nothing to help. And there was a new understanding in the redhead's hug as well as in her eyes, because it was one thing to be the Left Hand of the Divine and the Spymaster for the Inquisitor but it was quite another to be the Divine yourself, to run such a huge power, to make decisions that could spell ruin and disaster for all of Thedas. Leliana's arms around Hal, the fierceness of her kiss to the Dalish girl's cheek spoke volumes that her veiled letters could never have spelled out. It was lonely, ever so lonely to be Your Worship. Your Grace. To be a title instead of a name. But there were four people in just that room now who knew that pain intimately. 

When they finally broke their emotional embrace, their eyes met and they laughed. They kissed cheeks again and held each other out at arm's length to get a better look. Hal's eyes wandered the luxurious fabric of the Divine's robes, the peek of beautiful satin Orlesian slippers embroidered with little pearls. But Leliana was reaching for the Inquisitor's stomach as everyone who knew did these days. Hal flushed all the way to her ears, and when Leliana glanced over her shoulder to smirk at Fen'Harel, he turned faintly pink as well. But he smiled his pride, stood a little straighter, if it were possible. "I am so happy for you," she gushed thickly. "You deserve such happiness."

"So you've been spying on me?" Hal asked teasingly. They both knew the Inquisitor's network of eyes and ears were largely loyal first and foremost to Leliana. Some were more comfortable with Hal now that Leliana was Divine, but the information flowed both ways. If there was something the Inquisitor didn't want the Divine to know or vice versa, they would simply find a way to avoid the agents. 

Leliana'a eyes twinkled. "My darling Inquisitor, I imagine I knew before even you did." And then she laughed. "And if I had not, Josie's panicked letters for the next several days referring to 'the halla's complication' would have been more than sufficient."

Hal groaned. "Poor Josie. After Solas and Cullen, I think she was the most thrown." They both glanced behind Hal at the bald mage now, whose brow pulled down defensively. 

"It is the father's right," he sniffed with as much dignity as such a statement would allow.

Leliana laughed again and then moved to the teapot to begin making cups of the stuff for herself and her two companions. "Please, everyone, make yourselves at home. Solas, will you do us the favor of starting a fire? It is a bit drafty in this room. I apologize I do not have more prepared for guests, but  _someone_ did not bother to send warning of her arrival!"

"It was a last minute decision," Hal admitted, taking Solas' seat on the couch when he stood to light the empty hearth and reclaiming her tea from the end table. Merrill was already seated on the other end of the sofa. Leliana moved a plush arm chair from behind the desk and settled into it, leaving a love seat open for Hem and Zevran (though he considered impishly the open space between the two Dalish women until Fen'Harel scowled and the Antivan retreated next to the Warden with a cheeky grin). Hal shifted over a seat so that she could be between Merrill and her Elvhen lover, should the former still feel uncertain of the latter. The nugs got up only to move next to the fire, and only when everyone was settled in a circle did Zevran finally say what everyone was thinking: "This is quite the elven orgy, my friends!"

Well. Not quite what everyone was thinking.

Merrill and Hal blushed, Fen'Harel frowned his disapproval, but the other three just grinned. It was strange to see Leliana existing between three very different stages of her life. Hal knew her friend had been young when she had joined the Wardens during the Fifth Blight, had a vague knowledge of what had occurred, but the redhead had always played her cards close to her chest as long as Hal had known her. She was not like Varric, who freely offered stories of his adventures before the Inquisition, who had joined the Inquisition in large part because of his past. Leliana, more than any of her advisors, still remained something of a mystery to Hal. They understood one another, but Leliana knew far more about Hal than the Inquisitor probably even knew she did, whereas the Inquisitor knew only a general timeline of Leliana's life before Haven. And now here she was playing hostess with her youth and the Inquisition dressed in the impressive robes of her present and future. Hal wondered if Leliana was as disoriented as she would have been in such a position. But if anything, the new Divine seemed open and at ease. Relieved even, to be surrounded by those she trusted.

"Now then," Leliana began warmly, turning her attention to Merrill. "You are of course Varric's friend Merrill, former first of Clan Sabrae?"

"Oh!" Merrill was obviously unprepared to be addressed by such a figurehead and flushed again. "Yes, I-- Varric. And Hawke." She laughed nervously. "Oh dear, I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't have any idea of the proper way to address you."

"Please," the Divine encouraged, "You are a friend of Varric's and Hal's, so you are a friend of mine. And my friends call me Leliana." She paused then and frowned thougtfully at Hal. "But you did not introduce her as your friend, did you. No, you said 'cousin'. Did you perhaps mean 'lethallan'?"

"No," Hal confessed with a glance at Merrill, who blushed again. Maybe she would take the title away from Hal and Cullen. "The proper term would be 'asa'var'lin'. She is my father's brother's daughter."

" _Well_ ," Leliana said with a breathy laugh. "This is new, is it not? I thought you did not know your parents."

"Yeah," sighed Hal. "That's actually part of why we're here." She only hesitated briefly to consider Zevran and Hemlock before launching into her story, her fingers finding Fen'Harel's for support. She went through all of it -- the children in the woods, her panic, the memory resurfacing in her sleep and what it entailed, Merrill's visit in the morning, what steps she had already taken to locate Lanaya -- and then let out a long, hot breath when there was nothing else to tell, trying her best not to look at the horror and pity on Hem and Leliana's features or the strange understanding on Zevran's. "But I'm still learning to use your network, Leliana, and I imagine you have access to more than you ever offered me when you left. The Free Marches are full of slavers and, at the time, Templars. If she's alive, she'll be in Circle records...or Tevinter purchase orders. I know, I know you're busy and I have no right to ask anything more of you after..." The letter, she didn't say. After sending Fen'Harel to offer his truth and leaving a letter laying out the huge risk she was requesting of Leliana's Chantry. "But this isn't for the Inquisition. This is for me."

The Divine's features turned grim at the thought of where Lanaya might be found and Fen'Harel's fingers tightened around Hal's. But the redhead's face was earnest and kind, which filled Hal's tight chest with the flutterings of hope. "Hal'lasean, my friend, of  _course_ I will help. Of course I will!" She lifted her brows playfully at Fen'Harel. "I see she still underestimates her worth. After everything she has done for me, for all of us."

Hal felt her cheeks heat, but Fen'Harel smiled knowingly. "She would not be our Hal'lasean if she did not."

"Come, my dear Hal," Leliana encouraged, flashing Hal a smile as she reached behind her to secure a clipboard with parchment and ink. "Give me as many details of your sister as you remember. And you as well, Merrill. If she lives, we will find her for you."


	44. Chapter 44

At some point during the process of describing and writing down everything Hal and Merrill remembered about Lanaya and anything Fen'Harel thought worthwhile to share from his view of the memory, a late lunch arrived, Orlesian and fine, a mixture of tastes that shouldn't go together but became exquisite when prepared just so. There was even a plate of frilly cakes just for Fen'Harel, whose ears colored lightly with embarrassment though he was clearly terribly pleased with the gesture. Hal had been slightly concerned about Leliana's reception of the Elvhen mage before they arrived because although he assured her they left on good terms, it was a large, impossible secret to share, perhaps especially with a woman for whom secrets were her trade. But whatever worries she had were put to rest with that one plate of sweets. She and the Divine shared a smile over their meals. Hal's was grateful. Leliana's was knowing.

"Merrill," the Divine wondered as she cut delicate pieces off of the lemon-soaked game hen on her plate, "will you be staying with the Inquisition now that you know Hal is your cousin?"

Merrill turned pink and shot a worried look at her kin. "Oh, well, you see..." She cleared her throat. "I have to talk it over with...well, with Hawke and the others. But Hal'lasean wants me to teach Keeper magic at a school she's starting--"

"A school?" interrupted Hemlock. The Hero had been quiet while the others discussed their lost relative, but she and the other survivors of the Blight perked up with interest now. "A school to teach Keeper magic? Isn't that against Dalish rules?"

"Er," Merrill stammered, "well, yes, technically..."

"We're opening a school for young mages," Hal explained, lifting her brows pointedly at Leliana. "That's another reason we've come. Too many Dalish children are sent out into the wilds to fend for themselves when they show magical abilities. And with the dissolution of the Circles and the shaky state of the Templars, there are likely to be plenty of displaced shemlen children in the same situation. We're proposing a sanctuary for any mage child where they can be loved and fed and learn to use and control their abilities away from superstition and hatred. No Templars. No locking them away. They would be free to come and go as their guardians wished and we would of course let them choose their own paths in the world once they reached adulthood. Dorian has agreed to teach. As has Fiona. We'll be asking Bethany Hawke as well. Even Vivienne, if she agrees not to treat it as a Circle. But Merrill and Solas would teach elven magic to those who wish to learn their heritage. And Abelas and the sentinels as well, we hope, when we find them."

"Last I heard, they were in the Anderfels for some Maker-forsaken reason," Leliana offered and Fen'Harel frowned with an understanding he didn't bother to share. But Hal's eyes were locked to the Divine's, watching carefully to see how far her schpiel had gotten her in the unofficial beginnings of negotiations.

"You want Chantry approval," the redhead observed. "You believe that with it, the nations of Thedas are less likely to protest that the Inquisition is building an army of child mages."

Hal smiled her pleasure at this game, sipping at her tea casually as though there were nothing at all going on beneath the surface of the conversation. It was a trick she had picked up from her faithful Spymaster. Leliana smiled back in recognition. "What I _believe_ is that Thedas is nervous without the perceived order and containment offered by the Circles. I believe it would ease fears were the Chantry to support an alternate, kinder, more transparent option for its magical children."

"And if those mage children grow up and join the Inquisition, well, then, who are you to deny them," finished Hem, and both Hal and Fen'Harel were suddenly studying her appraisingly.

"How is that different than, say, the way Antivan Crows fill their ranks?" Zevran asked, his voice lackadaisical and light over a sharper subtext. Leliana was the only human in the room, but Merrill was the only one without a grasp of the Game they played.

"The children are my main priority," Hal replied frankly. It was not a promise or an assurance, but a fact. "I won't have anymore Dalish children starving in the woods because no clan will touch them. I won't have any little mages abandoned or hurt because they live in a world that doesn't understand their power. Not while I have the ability to do something about it. There will be self-defense training, but combat won't be taught unless they seek it out, unless they do in fact join the Inquisition. But it won't be encouraged. Healing will. Knowledge will. But first and foremost, this school will be a place of safety and compassion." They were all silent for a time, the Warden, the assassin, and the Divine watching the Inquisitor, the ancient god, and the young Dalish First. But Hal could tell she had Leliana's approval from the moment she mentioned the mage-driven tensions surrounding her ascension to the Andrastian throne. The rest was just clarification.

"How will we spread the word?" Leliana wondered.

"Chantry boards and envoys to the clans and alienages," Hal said immediately. "Posters that state any mage child seeking sanctuary at an Inquisition base or Chantry will be sent safely to the new school in the Frostbacks to learn. That they will be free, fed, and cherished. Signed by both the Inquisitor and Divine Victoria."

Leliana narrowed her eyes at Hal, but she didn't bother to hide the hint of a smirk that tugged at one corner of her lips. "Won't this work against your plan to keep the Inquisition separate from the Chantry?"

"It only means our falling out will have to be all the more spectacular," replied the Inquisitor with a grin.

"Falling out?" Merrill echoed in confusion. "But I thought you wanted to--"

Hal quickly put a hand on Merrill's leg to silence her, but Leliana shook her head. "She may speak freely here. As may you, Solas." The message was clear: the only thing Hem and Zevran didn't know yet was who the elven apostate truly was. "The reason Hemlock and Zevran are here is because of the letter Solas left with me."

"Letter?" repeated Merrill.

"Oh, didn't you know?" laughed Zevran. "Your Inquisitor has plans for all of us! She's laying traps like an oversexed Antivan widow!"

Merrill looked to her cousin with alarm and Hal gave a helpless shrug. "It's not quite like that. I told you, if we want Tevinter, if we want the elves to have a home, we have to have all of Thedas on our side. That includes the Chantry and the only noble elf in all of Thedas, who happens to be Hem's cousin. And we have to make our moves in the shadows because if the Magisterium catches wind of any of the coming storm before we're ready, it will become a long and bloody war. Well," she corrected with a sigh, "longer and bloodier."

"The letter didn't ask for us specifically," Hem admitted, pausing to steal a tomato from Zevran's plate. "But Hal wants the city elves and Zev and I can bring her that. And she wants Anora and my cousin Shianni, the Bann. And I imagine we all want Morrigan." She took a breath and popped the grape-sized fruit in her mouth, chewing to give herself time to work through whatever trepidation she was experiencing. When she swallowed, she glanced at Leliana for encouragement, but it was Zevran who held her hand in much the same way Fen'Harel held Hal's. Lovers then, she decided. "And though she doesn't know it yet, Hal will want my son."

Hal's eyes widened, her brows moving up her forehead in surprise. "Your son?"

"Mm," Hemlock agreed. "Alistair. If Anora never has an heir, he will be the next King of Ferelden."


	45. Chapter 45

"What you mean," Fen'Harel intervened quietly as he always used to do on Hal's behalf before she learned her own strength and cunning, "is your son Alistair will be the next King of Ferelden with both the Chantry and the Inquisition behind him."

Merrill was gaping openly at the Warden, no doubt trying to puzzle out how an elf's son could be in line for a shemlen throne. It was likely the only tales she'd heard of Hemlock were third hand from Hawke, so of course she wouldn't have heard about the King's bastard son Alistair who sacrificed himself to slay the Archdemon after Hemlock chose Anora over him for the throne. Leliana had been reluctant to discuss it in detail, but she did tell Hal once over a bottle of wine how Alistair and the Hero had been sweetly in love, that he had never wanted the throne, and that Hemlock had been devastated when he ran to deliver the killing blow before she could stop him. This she had brought up the day after the celebration at Skyhold because Hal's brave face, it seemed, reminded her much of Hem's. But at least the Hero of Ferelden knew her lover chose to die to save her life and soul. Hal, at the time, had only vague hopes that the same might be true of her Solas. She wondered how long it had taken Hemlock to bed Zevran after losing Alistair. She wondered, if Solas had died instead of leaving without a word, how long it would have taken her to bed Cullen. The thought made her heart and gut clench sickeningly. She tightened her hand around Fen'Harel's and was only mildly aware that she put down her fork so the other palm could rest protectively on her belly.

"We don't need the Inquisition or the Chantry," Hem replied coolly, sizing Fen'Harel up with those grey eyes. Hal knew the moment the Warden saw the Wolf lurking in his shadow because her eyes narrowed and her brows lifted in challenge. But Hal was also fairly certain even with a glimpse of the beast that Hem was underestimating the hobo apostate as everyone did. This sent a warm wave of pride through her chest. "The Queen has been aware of Alistair all his life and loves him dearly. We have her word that should she die childless, she will name Alistair her heir. Anora does not give her word lightly."

"A written decree from a queen you made," Hal pointed out without pretense, "does not assure your son's succession to the Mabari throne. But you of all people know this, since it was you who brought the arls and banns to challenge Loghain's regency. It will be some time before your son is old enough to rule, longer still until Anora dies, most likely, and by then the Blight and the Hero will be legend because the nobility who remember you and your deeds will long since have gone to their graves. Their upstart heirs will be power hungry and racist and spoiled by a lifetime of peace and prosperity. They won't give a dragon's dick about whose blood runs in your son's veins or what his parents did to save their precious, pampered lives. They'll see only the bastard son of a bastard son, a half-breed given a kingdom by a woman whose lineage is as common as their servants', who rules only because an elf forced their fathers' hands. They will fight you every step of the way and you know it. You're going to need every friend you can find." Everyone stared at her, though only Fen'Harel refused to show surprise or hint that he was impressed. Zevran let out a low whistle. This was not the subtle maneuvering of the Game played in the Winter Palace. If that was an Orlesian waltz, this was a Dalish war dance. But it didn't matter what the steps were; Hal knew by now she could lead any partner to any tune.

She and Hem studied each other warily while the others watched in silence. And then Hem let out a laugh. "You weren't kidding, Leliana."

The Divine leaned back and swirled her glass of wine, smiling delightedly. "You both used to be so sweet and unsure."

"So did you," Zevran countered.

"Yes," laughed Leliana, "but you never were."

"We were sweet and unsure," Hem agreed wryly, "Zev was saucy and perpetually erect."

"Was?" Zevran wondered with a rakish grin and a waggle of his brows.

Fen'Harel cleared his throat. "May we return to the business at hand?"

"But this is what _you've_ been doing all day!" Merrill protested. Everyone laughed but Fen'Harel, who leveled the Dalish girl with a flat look. "Well, it is! Cole and I had to sit in the woods for half an hour while you--"

"As I was saying," the Wolf interrupted loudly, which only made the group merrier, "you would have your son crowned King of Ferelden. Would he be a human king or an elfblooded king?"

"He will be a Ferelden king," Hem answered firmly. "He splits his time now between my cousin's estate, Anora's castle, and the road with us. Alistair is his father's son," and here her expression faltered slightly. "He is guileless and honorable. He doesn't lie. He cannot abide cruelty or injustice. When he's older, we'll work to make sure he understands the necessity for subtlety, how politics truly work. I don't want to alter his goodness in any way until I must. For now, we're showing him what it means to be poor and oppressed. I want him to know who he is, where he comes from. Because he is elfblooded. But that doesn't make him less of an elf." Fen'Harel looked unconvinced.

"Ali has it in him to be a great king," Leliana assured Fen'Harel and Hal. "He's so bright and gentle, but when he believes something is not right, I have seen him fierce as a Mabari."

"How old is he?" Hal asked, softer now that her position had been made clear. "He must be..." How long ago had the Blight ended? "Ten? Eleven?"

"Eleven," answered Zevran with a proud smile that had Hal reevaluating him. "Though he will insist to you that he is eleven years, four months, ten days."

"You're welcome to meet him," Hem offered. Hal wasn't sure just why she blushed at the idea of meeting the child of the two Wardens, but something about it stirred a bubbling warmth in her heart. "He's passed out with the dog in our bed at the moment, but we'll have to wake him soon or he'll never get to sleep tonight."

"He has been begging all week for stories of the elven Inquisitor," Leliana added with a laugh.

"I would be honored," said Hal. But instead of smiling, she rolled her lips in on themselves and knit her brow at Hem. "But I have to ask why it is you'd want your son on the throne of a country that will hate him for who he is."

"Because it was his father's right," Hemlock replied without hesitation. "And it's his. And...because of you. If Alistair could have married me, I would have put him on the throne whether he liked it or not. He was too good and compassionate to rule on his own and no one wanted him married to Anora, least of all me, but if I could have been with him, he would have been truly magnificent. We never even thought to fight for it. Neither of us thought it was possible for an elf to sit on a throne of power in Thedas. But here you are." She took a breath and gave a tremulous smile. Zevran's hand moved behind her to rest on the back of her neck. "My son has a legitimate claim and it looks more and more likely Anora will not marry. I want him on his rightful throne for the chance I denied his father. I want him on the Mabari throne because as much as I love my son and want him to live a happy, simple life, I know his elven blood will always stand in his way. At least if he rules from Denerim, he can make things better for The People. At least on the throne, his heritage will be a symbol of hope, just as yours is."

"I want your son to be happy as well," Hal began carefully. "I want him to have a childhood and freedom. I want him to become his own man. But if I put him on the throne...I'll need him with me when we move against Tevinter."

"I can't guarantee that," said the Warden. "Especially not if you want him to be his own man."

"I know," sighed Hal. "And I can't guarantee him a throne. But I can guarantee I'll try."

"Fair enough." Hemlock glanced at Leliana before nodding her affirmation at Hal'lasean. "I can guarantee that much."

Leliana's lips quirked. "Long live King Alistair."


	46. Chapter 46

"They're never going to agree to that," Hemlock argued just as she had been with every military and political maneuver the Inquisitor and her apostate lover Solas mentioned for the past half an hour. Truthfully, she was impressed. More than impressed. This Inquisition of Leliana's had more guts and imagination than...well, than anyone she had ever known. She and Alistair had powered through the Blight with nothing but survival instinct and grit and more than a little of his hopeful idealism that most people were basically good and that if they made the honorable choices and fought for all of Ferelden as the Wardens were meant to do, they would persevere. It was always about completing the next task. Save the Circle, save the Arl's son, get the Ashes, save the Arl, win the Landsmeet...

She was the hardass to Alistair's noble heart. Except of course where blood magic and Loghain were involved. Then she was...well, if she was being honest, she had made those choices based on what he would think of her. She couldn't bear the disappointment in his face when she thought to be merciful to someone he was unwilling to forgive. Maybe she should have been stronger willed. Maybe she should have been willing to convince him to go against everything he believed and bed Morrigan no matter how dirty and hurt it left them both, no matter how little she trusted the witch with a child with an Old God's soul. Maybe she should have been willing to lose him to spare Loghain so that even if they weren't together, it could have saved his life. His soul. Maybe she should have forced him on the throne despite what was best for Ferelden. He had been so magnificent in that last battle, had spoken like a true commander of men as they prepared to face the horde. He could have been a great king. He wouldn't have stayed her lover, but she could have advised him. Maybe if she'd been less focused on the ballistas, she could have beat him to the killing blow. Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe if she had something like the Inquisition behind her instead of taking on the Blight as two virginal Warden recruits with barely four decades of life between them. Maybe if she were as audacious as this Dalish girl, thinking in terms of lifetimes and generations instead of living through today and tomorrow. She frowned again at this Inquisitor, perched forward on her apostate's lap with teal eyes bright, and wondered if she had ever been so young, wondered if, when she was, she had seemed so old. She could ask Leliana later, she supposed. Leliana had been  _so_ young then. 

"They don't get to agree or disagree," Hal replied with the same patient passion she'd been using since they had first unrolled the map she had pulled from her pack. It was stretched out across the Divine's desk, held down by impossible daggers that glinted with a coating of what the Inquisitor had explained were nightmares, though she hadn't gone into  _how_. Another question for Leliana then. All Hem knew was that she wanted them. They looked like fun. "Unless Tevinter suddenly decides to free the slaves of their own volition, which will never happen, they forfeit any and all claims to negotiation."

Shianni would love Hal'lasean. The two of them would be able to talk elven justice for hours. Days, even. It was why she'd made her cousin Bann in the first place. That and she had no desire whatsoever to deal with Ferelden nobles ever again. She ended up having to anyway as Warden-Commander, but the moment she could get away, she fled, went into hiding, became just another flat-ear wandering Thedas. Another difference between this girl and the girl she had once been. 

"And you think the other nations of Thedas are just going to let you carve off pieces of a Tevinter they helped conquer to hand over to elves they hate and fear?" Hem asked next, eyeing the carefully determined lines drawn on the map.

"All those freed slaves have to go somewhere," countered Hal. "The last thing they're going to want is an influx of indigent elves. Orlais and Ferelden are already overrun with refugees from the Blight and the civil wars. Giving us a piece of Tevinter won't seem like such a terrible compromise, especially if it draws some of their poorer elves away from their overcrowded cities. They just need the proper motivation."

"And you intend to be the one to provide it?" Zevran wondered. He had been pacing behind Leliana, who had moved her chair back to its proper place at her desk, but now he was gingerly sliding his hands on Merrill's shoulders just to enjoy the way she stiffened in alarm and turned an angry pink. His eyes gleamed with delight and Hem moved her hand over her smirk at the deep, disapproving scowl Zevran earned from Solas.

"Not all of them will need it, I hope," answered Hal, leaning back from the map to placate her lover. "With the son of an elf ruling in Ferelden and Celene openly involved with Briala in Orlais. With the Chantry supporting us as reparations for the Exalted March and Antiva's money dependent on the Montilyets..." Solas wrapped his arms around her waist and she relaxed contentedly. "The only countries that will need convincing are Nevarra, the Free Marches, and Rivain. None of which should be too challenging with a Qunari alliance hanging over their heads."

" _If_ there is a Qunari alliance," Hem corrected frankly. "There are nothing but ifs in these plots of your, Inquisitor.  _If_ Briala can secure the Dales.  _If_ your man can survive in the Magesterium long enough to gain power.  _If_ my son sits on the Ferelden throne."

"A wise woman once told me a fisherman catches more dinner with a net than by casting a single line," was all the Inquisitor replied, and behind her desk Leliana smiled slow and proud.

"Asa'var'lin," Merrill interrupted, and because she had been so very silent for so long, they all turned to look at her, "why not include Halamshiral in the Dales? If we're hoping to take back what was promised us, why not ask for all of it?"

"Orlais will never willingly part with Halamshiral," Solas murmured. "To do so would be to admit fault in taking it. They must feel righteous and generous in the giving of the Dales or Celene will not find support for the endeavor."

"Although..." And suddenly Hemlock was sitting forward to stare at the map, at the line that swept up the Dales and bordered the lands outside of Halamshiral like a pack of wolves skirting prey. She was aware of how the shrewder eyes in the room were now studying her appraisingly in the face of her abrupt burst of enthusiasm. "With the Dales and the Arlathan Forest secured, it would be a simple enough thing to take Halamshiral by force. It's a city almost entirely peopled with elves. It wouldn't require much of a spark to light a rebellion."

Hal actually laughed, a dark and throaty sound that was at odds with the sweetness of her face. "Done playing Wolf's advocate, are we?"

"As long as we're dreaming big..." Hem replied with a shrug and a smile. But the singular human in the room was rubbing her temples and breathing out a hard sigh.

"You're all going to make my Divinity one neverending headache, aren't you," Leliana groaned.

"Ir abelas, ma falon," Hal sighed earnestly, reaching over to place her hand on the Divine's. With that one sentence, Hemlock had already taxed most of her knowledge of Elvish. "You know you don't have to stand with us on this if it goes against your beliefs."

Leliana breathed a laugh and wrapped her fingers around the Inquisitor's hand. "That's just it, isn't it? It goes along exactly with my beliefs. Perhaps I should not worry so much about what history will say of me, so long as I am doing what is right. I do worry, though, how much the human nations will allow you to bend them before they break and retaliate."

"They won't be able to hide behind an Exalted March this time," murmured Hal'lasean. "We're not asking for everything that was taken from us; just our Arlathan heart and what was promised. And when we have it, we will be satisfied."

"You may be satisfied," said Zevran without any of his usual airiness, "but can you guarantee the same for those who come after you?"

"No," and it was Solas who answered, his gaze unreadable even as his arms tightened possessively around his lover, "but I can."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Asa'var'lin" - cousin, female  
> "Ir abelas, ma falon" - "I am (full of sorrow/sorry), my friend"


	47. Chapter 47

"I can explain the finer details to you later," Leliana promised when Zevran and Hemlock refused to accept the vague explanations that Hal'lasean and Solas were willing to offer about how it was he was Elvhen, about how it was possible that more of them still existed. About where in Andraste's name they'd been all these years while The People suffered and starved. And through it all Merrill was staring determinedly down at her lap. "If we are to get Merrill and the Inquisitor back to Skyhold by tonight, we have much more to cover."

"And they'll be getting back to the Frostbacks so quickly because of a magical land of mirrors like the one Morrigan found," Hemlock added dryly, her annoyance open for the Inquisition to read. "Because they  _have_ Morrigan's mirror. Because everything in this damn world comes back to Morrigan and her machinations. Because apparently Flemeth isn't the only immortal wandering around Thedas."

"Flemeth is dead," Leliana confessed almost in apology. Hemlock didn't bother to stop her mouth from falling open.

" _What_?!  _How_?!" Oh-so-well did Hem remember confronting Morrigan's mother on her behalf against her better judgment. She wanted Flemeth dead. Hem just wanted to know what was actually going on. It had been surprisingly easy to acquire the Grimoire from the Witch of the Wilds. And Hemlock had had a strong suspicion that had she challenged Flemeth, she would not have survived. Surely Morrigan had known that too. 

Morrigan.

Fucking Morrigan.

"It's complicated," Hal'lasean sighed. Behind her, Solas' face was an immovable mask. "The short version is that she gave up her power and immortality to help The People reclaim their home."

"Flemeth was human!" Something wasn't getting said; they were avoiding admitting to something huge and potentially game-changing just as their map of the Dales avoided Halamshiral. Plots within plots within plots. And Hemlock hated politics. She hated these games. She would gladly leave all this to Leliana and Shianni if she could. But for sweet, honest Alistair. She was here to secure him a throne. She needed to remember that. This was for Alistair and little Adaia and the elves in the alienages. This was for the rape and the poverty and the killing of elves like sport. This was for her kin she couldn't save from slavers because Loghain needed the blighted money for his useless war. On second thought, she was glad she'd taken a sword through his neck. She took in a deep, settling breath and turned her attention sharply on Leliana. "You swear you'll explain all this later?"

Leliana hesitated but Hal gave a nod. For a moment, Hemlock wanted to grab one of those beautiful daggers off the desk and scratch the Inquisitor's pretty face. For a moment. And then it passed. "I swear it."

"Fine," Hemlock nearly growled. "Fine. Then let's move on. What else do we need to cover?" Hal rolled her lips together, watching Hemlock warily as she decided whether or not she wanted to say what it was she felt it was time to say. "Just say it."

"We're worried about the Wardens."

"No." Every eye in the room snapped to Zevran, who was now standing behind Hem with one hip cocked, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest and his face the very image of Antivan ire. 

"No?" the Inquisitor echoed.

" _No_ ," he repeated fiercely. "She has given enough to the Grey Wardens. Find someone else."

Hemlock's heart swelled with affection for Zevran, for saying what she wanted to say but couldn't bring herself to. Her sense of duty to the Wardens was neverending, even after all these years, even hiding from them as she was. She couldn't say no when they needed her. And even if she could have, Alistair's voice was always in her head. The Wardens were the only thing about which he ever could speak eloquently. His voice was always in her head, lifting duty up like the only worthwhile thing besides honor and their love. So now as she once had protected Zevran from the Crows, he protected her from the Wardens. Dear, loyal Zevran. Zevran, who with Leliana had taken it upon himself to cure her of her post-Alistair pregnant hermitage with a long trip to Orlais for which they had purposefully brought only one tent. They were both exceptionally generous and inventive lovers and they had sweetly held her when she wept as she came. Until one fine morning on the Exalted Plains it suddenly didn't hurt quite so much when they were there beside her as she woke instead of Alistair. That night, she finally found the will to reciprocate. By the time they reached Val Royeaux where Leliana was to leave them, she was heavily pregnant. So they had stayed there, the three of them, in one little flat, and it had been Leliana and Zevran who delivered her son. Zevran, who raised Alistair as his own. Zevran, who loved her as a sister and a friend, and whom she loved in much the same way. Zevran, the father of her daughter and Alistair's half-sister. Because they never did stop warming each other's beds, even if they both knew they would never be in love. Because what they had was enough. Because somehow Hem had known the moment Alistair had last told her he loved her that her heart would never have room for another in that way.

"Look for Nathaniel Howe," Hemlock managed to suggest reticently. "He's a good man and a capable Warden. He'll be willing to help if you tell him I recommended him."

Merrill gasped, eyes widening, her hand covering her gaping mouth. "I know Nathaniel Howe! We rescued him from the Deep Roads and then he fought beside us after--" Her face blanched and Hemlock couldn't help her hard, bitter laugh.

"After Anders and Justice blew up the Kirkwall Chantry? Yeah, I recruited both of them. At the same time as Nathaniel. So you're welcome, I guess." Merrill looked horrified by Hem's cavalier self-loathing and she immediately regretted how she'd spoken. Her features softened. "Anders was a good lad once. Eager and funny. I gave him a kitten and he carried the poor creature with him wherever we went, even into battle. And Justice..."

"Anders was not properly trained to accept a spirit into himself," Solas said softly. His face was still neutral but Hemlock got the feeling he was...comforting her. Or possibly absolving her. As if he had the right or the power to do so. "Spirits of Justice are unyielding beings. It is all too easy for the complexities of life beyond the Veil to twist them into Vengeance."

"Justice was meant to leave when his body decayed beyond his ability to use it." She wasn't even sure why she was offering explanations, but here she was, talking about things she was always trying to forget. "I should have stayed long enough to be sure it happened."

"You wanted to be home with your son," Leliana murmured. "No one can fault you for that."

"If the Wardens cannot survive without you," Zevran added sharply, "then let them end. It's not your responsibility to keep them from killing themselves. You did your part."

"We'll find Nathaniel Howe," Hal assured Zevran and Hemlock with an open compassion and empathy that almost made Hem feel guilty for wanting to cut her face earlier. Almost. Okay, yes, she felt guilty. "Your place is with your son."

Hemlock didn't miss the subtle movement of Solas' hands down Hal'lasean's body to rest fingers against her belly. She also didn't miss the way jealousy crept through her that this girl would have her child's father by her side when Alistair had never even known his son existed. 

"Mamae! Mamae! Mamae!" came a chirping child's voice from the hall accompanied by the slapping of little bare feet on stone flooring. "Mamae, hide me!" 

She came barreling in at a hard run as she always did, little Adaia, surprisingly tan beneath her strawberry curls, pointed ears peeking through that fine baby hair, large grey eyes round with excitement. From behind her in the hall, Alistair called after her: "Ready or not, here I come!"

Adaia went racing around the desk, dodging some legs and tripping over others, only to be caught before she fell by a well-placed hand on her chest courtesy of Solas. Hal quietly put away her blades, a gesture that made Hem like her a little more.

"Careful, da'len," Solas cautioned, and Adaia turned to take him in with a sudden shyness that froze her like a frightened squirrel. 

"Daia," Zevran laughed, "you must hide or Ali will win!" She gasped, coming back to herself, and dove head-first behind her father's legs. He scooped her up and kissed her forehead before handing her off to Leliana, who tucked her beneath the desk just as her brother entered, trailed by his faithful Mabari puppy.

He was strawberry blonde as well, though he lacked his sister's ears and curls. His hair instead stood straight up in all directions, and though he was slender for a human boy, he had the makings of his father's height. His father's sturdy human features. But his mother's eyes.

"Where oh where could Daia be!" he called playfully, and then blushed when he realized his family was not alone. "Oh! I'm sorry, Mamae, we didn't know..." He stood up suddenly straighter and made a very serious face as he remembered his manners. 

"Ali," Leliana said with a smile, "I'd like to introduce you to my dear friend the Inquisitor."

Alistair's human visage lit up with delight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Mamae" - mother  
> "Da'len" - child


	48. Chapter 48

The Warden-Commander made beautiful children, there was no debating that. The boy was already handsome and would no doubt be every noblewoman's dream despite his dubious ancestry should he make it to the throne. Hal'lasean was already taken with him. Perhaps because she was imagining her own child in him or perhaps simply because he was everything Hemlock -- an absurd name -- had said he was. Alistair was a well-mannered boy, polite and charming and bright without being precocious. Fen'Harel was enjoying witnessing his vhenan interact with the child greatly. She still sat on his lap, but she was straight-backed and attentive of the would-be prince. And, having already shaken his hand solemnly in greeting, she was now showing him her anchored palm. He was enchanted. So was she. Fen'Harel split his focus between their innocent interaction and the hawk-like supervision of his mother and -- as the boy called him -- his Uncle Zevran.

Hal'lasean was so intent on the bastard prince that it looked as though she had no idea she was being tested, but of course he knew better. She was much too keen to be unaware of the implications of a meeting like this. So if she was ignoring it, it meant it was a choice. She was showing them that she cared more for the boy than for the potential king. And they loved it. He rested a hand on her hip in approval and she glanced back at him with a flash of a smile. His Hal'la was radiant in that moment. It was a cliché to say that a quickening woman glowed, but that is precisely what she was doing. She was glowing. Perhaps passing Hemlock's test was simply a pleasing side benefit of her genuine contentment in the presence of such a happy child. He had to admit that it was difficult not to wonder what their son -- if they should have a son -- might be like at this age. He would be intelligent, surely, for both his parents were exceptionally so. He would be a pretty youth; handsome would come later as he aged. He would have full lips and his father's chin and, fate willing, his mother's nose. He would be pale as they both were, freckled as Fen'Harel was, with silver hair like hers that fell in easy curls as his had once done. Hal'la insisted she wanted their child to have his grey-blue eyes, but he hoped fervently they would inherit her eyes like the birds of the Arbor Wilds. Would their son be a little hellion, always in trouble, or quiet and sensitive and bookish? Fen'Harel found that he did not mind either way. Both thoughts made him stupid with happiness.

"Does it hurt?" Alistair asked worriedly, and Hal'la smiled to ease her answer.

"It did at first. It nearly killed me." She turned back to Fen'Harel with another pleased smile and he imagined her chatting so amiably with their young son, answering questions about her people or the Inquisition or any of the myriad things she knew better than he. He would teach magic and the Fade and Elvhenan. She would teach life and love and compassion. He would make their child wonder. She would make their child laugh. His hand squeezed at the blade of her hip and she wiggled slightly in response. "But Solas is an expert in all things to do with the Fade. He saved my life and helped me learn to control it. It hasn't hurt in years now."

"Oh!" and Alistair blushed again. He was rather like Cullen that way. The boy offered his hand to Fen'Harel, who accepted it with a quiet smile. This princeling had a surprisingly firm handshake. That boded well. "I'm so sorry! That was rude of me. It is a pleasure to meet you, serah."

Fen'Harel carefully did not smirk his amusement at the child's seriousness. "And you, young man."

"Ali," his mother called gently, and the boy turned obediently to see to her. "Why don't you ask their other companion her name." There was a twinkle in her eyes that she shared with Leliana, but the boy missed it. He looked chastened and quickly gave his attention to the Dalish mage with a proffered hand. 

"My apologies, hahren," he murmured, and Merrill did not manage not to laugh at the title. He turned very pink. "May I ask your name? I am Alistair Te--" He hesitated. "Alistair." 

Merrill, like Hal'la, was quite charmed. "It's all right, da'len. My name is Merrill."

His eyes went so round they looked nearly elven, his skin blanching and flushing in turns like one of Ghilan'nain's creatures of the deep sea. " _Merrill_?!" Alistair echoed, his voice high in the way of prepubescent boys. "Merrill of Clan Sabrae?!"

The Dalish girl looked confusedly at Hal'la and then at Fen'Harel, as though they might be responsible for every strange occurrence in her day. When Hal'lasean shrugged, Merrill let out a light, helpless laugh. "Ah, yes, I was-- I used to be the First of Clan Sabrae."

"Maker!" the boy cried. He whipped abruptly around on his heel and took off for the hall through which he had come, only collecting himself enough to run backwards for the time it took him to shout, "Please excuse me!" The Mabari pup, who had disappeared beneath the desk with the little girl, skittered clumsily after its master. 

Adaia surfaced moments later with the exaggerated frown that comes only with the first injustices of childhood, her hands made into little fists on her hips. "Ally-stair!" she complained, stomping a foot. "You come find me!"

Zevran and Leliana were laughing delightedly at the entire spectacle. Only Hemlock offered an amused explanation: "The Tale of the Champion is his favorite book. Leliana sent him an autographed copy for his birthday."

"Ally-stair!" whined Adaia. 

Zevran held out his arms to her. "Come, my Antivan rose. Ali will return. In the meanwhile, your father requires at least  _five_ kisses."

The little girl scowled at her father, an adorable expression that was all chubby cheeks and furrowed blonde brows. "Two!"

Zevran looked scandalized. "I will settle for no less than five, naughty girl!"

"Three!"

Her father narrowed his eyes at her, pretending to agonize over the negotiations. "Four. That is my final offer."

Adaia puffed out her cheeks and squirmed as she considered whether or not she was willing to go so high. "Three mouth-kisses and one nose-kiss!"

Zevran's whole face was taken over by his victorious grin. "It is a deal! Come, Adaia, seal it with a kiss!" So he got four kisses and a nuzzle after all.

It was only then that Alistair came racing back into the room, holding over his head a worn copy of Varric's handiwork with a quill that dripped ink onto his fair hair. "Please, hahren!" he gasped breathlessly at Merrill. "Please will you sign my book! Did you really fight a dragon! And demons! And did Hawke really duel the Arishok and win? Does Fenris ever forgive his sister? Where is he now? Can he really rip out a man's heart with just his hands?!"

Hal'la lifted her brows over the boy's enthusiasm at his mother. "Is he like this over your adventures?"

It was Adaia who answered, bright and cheerful now in Zevran's arms. "Mamae won't tell us stories except about Ali's babae. But  _my_ babae tells us sometimes if we're good, stories about Mamae and the evil Lo--" She frowned.

"Loghain," finished Zevran for her, and she nodded. But he was looking over her to her mother, whose brows were arched over her flashing eyes. The Antivan smiled nervously in return. "What! They are particularly gripping tales with a beautiful elven heroine and the very dashing assassin..." When her eyes narrowed, he quickly backpedalled. "Who she rescues valiantly at great personal expense, and who is endlessly grateful all of his days for her capacity for forgiveness!" When this got him nowhere, he gave an awkward laugh. "Did I mention she is beautiful?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Mamae" - mother  
> "Babae" - father  
> "Hahren" - elder


	49. Chapter 49

Their farewell embrace lasted even longer than the one they'd exchanged in greeting. Leliana and Hal'lasean held tightly to each other while the others were packing up and saying their own goodbyes. The two women kissed cheeks and finally broke apart, but with a quick glance at the room full of her loved ones, the Divine swung the secret passage open with the fire still crackling in the hearth and pushed Hal in front of her down the dark, hidden hallway. The Inquisitor might have laughed if it weren't for the gravity of Leliana's expression when they were suddenly alone. She tried not to remember the redhead's similar expression when she explained that her agents could find no sign of Solas. She tried not to, but she remembered anyway. 

"What is it," Hal said more than asked, already bracing herself for what was to come.

"I have..." Leliana hesitated, her skin paler than usual, her eyes unexpectedly vulnerable. "A question. It is maybe a foolish one, Hal'lasean, and I don't wish you to take it the wrong way. I...simply must know. For my own sanity."

Nerves twitched in Hal's stomach but she reached out to take her friend's hand, clad now as it was with the heavy rings of her station. "Anything, Leliana. You can always ask me anything."

The redhead laughed, a taut gesture that came with a shake of her head. "Oh, Hal, I know. Which is why this may be a foolish question." She glanced at the room again where Fen'Harel and Hemlock were carefully distracting the others from what was happening in the passage. Then she forced herself to fix her gaze on the Inquisitor's, studying her elven eyes as only someone who collected secrets could. "It is only...I worry. About these plans of yours. I--" She laughed again, at herself this time, and tried again: "If you supported me as Divine over Cassandra because you knew I would be more likely to go along with..." She waved a hand to indicate the things they'd been discussing. "I need to know. Is that why? Because I had thought it was..." The woman actually blushed and Hal'lasean's brow knit with sympathy and remorse.

"Leliana," the elf sighed, "ma falon. Lethallan." Only when Hal had Leliana's full attention, only when she knew the Divine was aware of just how earnest she was being, did she continue. "The whole truth is, I had planned to support Cassandra." Leliana sucked in a breath and Hal'lasean winced, squeezing the hand she held. "Please, hear me out. I was going to support Cass because...because I thought after all that Thedas had been through, order was what was most needed. And that the Chantry was in the best position to offer that order. The Inquisition hadn't beaten Corypheus yet and we still weren't completely trusted by the shems -- not that we are now -- and I believed at the time that Cassandra's plans to keep things...the same, but better...I believed that was the proper path, the safest path." This time it was Hal who took in an audible breath as she tried not to think too much about Leliana's obviously hurt feelings. It was so rare for the other woman to actually emote that it was both unsettling and painful to see, knowing she was causing it. "And because you worked from the shadows, I thought they'd follow her more readily. Resist her less." She rolled her lips together. "And then you and I went to find the message left you by Justinia. She didn't leave anything for Cassandra, or if she did, Cass never told me. But you did. You let me go with you and you listened to me and you have changed so much since we first met, Leliana. Cassandra is a mountain, a force to be reckoned with, but you are the wind, unseen and patient. And over time, the wind erodes the mountain." She paused then to collect her thoughts, to make sure she was saying just what she wanted to be getting across. 

"I don't understand," the Divine admitted softly. "What changed your mind?"

Hal's brows lifted in surprised. "You did, Leliana. You changed my mind. You have taught me so much since the Breach. You and Josie and Cullen were -- still are -- the Inquisition. I understand that so much more clearly now that I don't have you there advising me, telling me Thedas' secrets. But...more than all of that, you've showed you're willing to learn yourself. You change your mind when you think you've been wrong. You see things others don't. And Justinia herself wanted you to come out of the shadows. How could I deny a dying wish from the woman who saved my life?" The Inquisitor gave a slow smile then, reaching out to touch her friend's hair. "You have a loving, sensitive heart, lethallan. You've seen so much and done so much and still you care and fight. After we talked...just before I sent in my support for you...I thought again about your plans. After everything, you would turn the world on its head and start again, not because it's easy or safe, but because it's  _right_." Leliana's worry eased visibly, but Hal wasn't quite done. Her brow furrowed as she continued. "Honestly, I had no idea what I would do with the Inquisition after Corypheus. I could barely imagine a time after Corypheus. But you did. And you imagined it beyond the world before Corypheus as well. I kept thinking how kind and worthwhile Thedas might be with the Chantry you described -- one that wasn't interested in power or rules, but in compassion and charity." Hal laughed now, a frank sound that came with a shrug. "Leliana, I believe in your vision for the Chantry. It's that vision that helped me find mine for the elves. But I told you, I only want you by my side on this if you truly believe in what we're trying to do. If at any point, that ceases to be true, you can back out. All I ask, as I said in my letter, is that you don't act against me, even if you feel you can't support me. And even then, if ever you think I've lost my way..." 

They were quiet then for some time, listening to the crackle of the fire and the laughter of the children and the conversation of their companions. But eventually Leliana smiled and touched her fingers to the early swell of Hal'lasean's stomach. "I don't suppose you'll let me bless your child when it's born."

This time, Hal's laugh was just that: a laugh. Amused and fond. "You're welcome to try, shemlen."

Leliana grinned then. "Very well. But I _will_ try unless you bring the babe to meet me. I'll have you know I am an excellent auntie."

Hal leaned in to kiss Leliana on the cheek again, a gesture the other woman was only too happy to reciprocate. "Don't worry, Your Worship. No matter what else happens between the Chantry and the Inquisition, you will have a place in my child's life. And in mine."

 

~~~

 

Merrill waited for Hal'la on the other side of the Eluvian in the hidden cave near Skyhold to afford the parting lovers some privacy in the Crossroads. They were making use of it while they could, not as they had been all that night and morning, but chastely, sweetly. Fen'Harel's arms wrapped completely around Hal'lasean's back and held her to him in that way that felt meant to be, as though they were two halves of the same flesh. They stood this way in silence for what felt like ages and seconds simultaneously, breathing each other in, sharing a heartbeat and the rhythm of their breathing. They would not be able to touch one another outside the Fade for somewhere between eight and ten months, depending on whether or not the child was mortal and came before he was scheduled to return in the summer, and while once that easy land of dream and memory had been the only place Fen'Harel had wanted to do anything, it now felt pale in comparison to the reality of her body against his. A wisp of what he truly desired. 

One day he would let the Veil fall and he would have her in the ancient way of Elvhenan, both dream and physical form joined as one. He stiffened against her now at just the thought of how their love making would feel. If they survived that long. If they could keep the Pantheon at bay. If, if, if.

"You are the only man in the history of the world who could frown so deeply with this in his breeches," Hal'la laughed, sliding her hand down his stomach to cup him firmly through the cloth. His breath hitched and she laughed again, leaning up on her toes to fill his mouth with her tongue. He smiled self-deprecatingly into the kiss even as he reciprocated, and though she stroked her thumb along the outline of his erection, she made no move to help him with it. It was, if anything, a gesture of affection. It said she would miss him. When the kiss broke, her expression was open and vulnerable. "Don't waste our last moments together outside the Fade worrying, Fen," she pleaded softly, and he nuzzled her in response.

"Ar lath ma," he sighed out like breathing. 

"Ar lath ma," she promised in reply. They kissed again and then he sank to his knees before her, unbuttoning the bottom of her coat and lifting the tunic and sweater beneath so he could press his lips and then his cheek to her stomach. "I ma, arasha," he murmured to the child she carried, "ar lath ma tas." He peered up at her slyly and then added, "Ma fenlin." She grinned with her lower lip caught between her teeth and he stood to catch it instead in his. They kissed needfully for some time and then he rested his forehead to hers. Their eyes met, mournful but determined. Fen'Harel kissed her nose and she smiled.

"I will find you in the Fade in a week, ma lath," he vowed, and turned her around by the shoulders so that she faced the active Eluvian. "Now go before I am forced to ravish you again." The look she tossed him over her shoulder, the way her hip shifted, he almost did anyway.

"In a week," she sighed, and stepped through.

He stood there for quite a while after the mirror settled behind her, cutting them off from one another, and then Fen'Harel turned away and coaxed his reluctant body toward the repaired Eluvian that would let him out closest to the Anderfels. He did not look up when he passed a mirror that shimmered without his permission, nor did he alter his course. But he did slow, did let his wolfish sway take over, in case the intruder thought him prey. No, said his gait, he was the predator here in this place of his making.

"Morrigan," was all he said as she stepped through, his lips twisting in a near-snarl. She had clearly not been expecting anyone, much less him, though who she thought had been restoring the Eluvians...

"Dread Wolf," she answered, her voice and body tense.

"I have your scent," Fen'Harel told her frankly before stepping backwards through the mirror to the Anderfels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Ma falon" - "my friend"  
> "Lethallan" - kin, female  
> "Shemlen" - "quickling", human  
> "Ar lath ma" - "I love you"  
> "I ma, arasha, ar lath ma tas" - "And you, my happiness, I love you also"  
> "Ma fenlin" - "my (wolf) puppy"  
> "Ma lath" - "my love"


	50. Epilogue

_My dearest friend,_

_Please disregard this entirely if you have need of me; say the word and I will return immediately. If, however, you can manage without me for a while longer, I think it might be best to maintain my distance for now. It was good to see my family. You were right, as always. If only it had been enough. Things remain complicated. Perhaps they always will be. But given the circumstances, I'd like to spend the next month or two appraising our holdings to the North. Should you need to reach me, leave word for me there._

_There is much I should like to say to you, but words have never been my strength, and it would be inappropriate in such an easily intercepted message as this. Suffice it to say that I think of you far too often. Perhaps that is unfair of me to tell you, but it's true. I hope you're as happy as you were when I left. I hope all is well. I will return when I can._

_Your faithful,_

_Cullen_

_PS I have brought you and yours a gift from Ferelden. I will send it to you at the next base._

_PPS I hope he hates it. I am a petty, jealous man._

 

"Did you find the secret message yet?" Varric asked with flat, amused judgment from his favorite chair by her fire. "Maybe if you just read it one more time." He and Dorian were enjoying a bottle of fine Nevarran wine between them. It had been sent to the Inquisitor, of course, but as she couldn't have anything without watering it down to nearly nothing, she had offered it to them instead. They were making a point of openly fawning over its vintage so she could be extra miserable in her abstinence, but now it seemed they had moved on to teasing her about the carefully folded and refolded and refolded nature of the letter she had been reading. Again. 

"Oh, leave her alone," chided Dorian, considering his glass of red as some might consider a well-cut jewel. "We've all seen your sour face when you don't get a love letter from a certain lady dwarf." Varric glared.

"This is _not_ a love letter," Hal huffed toothlessly at the men from where she reclined on her bed, propped up by an excess of Orlesian pillows that she had hated until her back had begun to bother her. Now she couldn't say enough wonderful things about them. The pillows. Not the Orlesians. They too had been a gift, this time from Leliana, who had sworn they did wonders for Hemlock during both of her pregnancies. They had even been embroidered with actual Dalish patterns instead of the poor approximations that had been thrown hastily together for the Winter Palace. She rested there in the fading daylight with her breeches laced low below the still-small hill of her stomach and one of Fen'Harel's loose sweaters covering her swollen breasts. It was pushed up to reveal her bare belly so that Merrill's hands and magic could better access the life growing within her.

It should have been the elven healers and midwives tending to her, but at some point the child she carried had...ceased to grow in quite the normal way. So Merrill and Fen'Harel had gone in search of material on Elvhen pregnancy a few weeks prior and Hal found that only those mages who knew the nature of her child's father could be trusted now to check on how she was progressing. This usually meant Merrill, since she had both the Dalish Keeper training and was in contact with Fen in case he found something new and useful, but if the other elf was busy teaching Alarel or off repairing Eluvians, Bethany and Dorian were both doing the research on elven infants necessary to step in. Although the last time Dorian delicately sank his magic into her womb, he had ended up wiping tears from his cheeks with his upper arms. It was sweet, but not conducive to keeping an eye on the baby.

"It may as well be," laughed Dorian. "'Your faithful Cullen'?"

"You read my letter?" Hal demanded, but the mage didn't bother to confess. Of course he had.

"That poor bastard could inspect every base and camp under Inquisition flags and he'd still come back looking for a belly rub."

"Dorian," and this time Hal's chastisement actually held an edge. The Tevene at least had the sense to look remorseful. 

"What he needs," Varric announced as though he and his wine glass held all the answers, "is to get laid."

"Oh, look who's talking!" said Merrill, not even glancing up from her ministrations, and Dorian laughed heartily.

"I get plenty, Daisy," Varric retorted vaguely.

Hal'lasean smirked. "Your crossbow doesn't count." The other two laughed, but Varric looked absolutely disgusted.

"I would never abuse Bianca like that."

"Maybe you should," suggested Dorian. The dwarf made a sound like he wanted to wretch, which pleased his drinking partner greatly.

Something pinched just above Hal's pelvis and she let out a quiet whimper that stopped all conversation and merriment. The men were staring with eyes full of the panic that can only come from a near-complete ignorance of what pregnancy actually entailed. But Merrill just blushed and mumbled an apology before sitting back a little and helping Hal cover herself.

"Daisy?" Varric ventured worriedly. "Everything okay over there?"

"Ah, yes, everything's-- I just slipped a bit."

But Hal was watching Merrill's easily readable face, just waiting for a sign that something was wrong. And she knew by now just what this one of her cousin's expressions meant.

"How far behind?" she asked softly, refusing to take her eyes off her kinswoman. 

Merrill flushed and forced a brave smile. "It looks quite healthy. Its little ears have come in and--"

"Asa'var'lin," Hal insisted, lifting her brows. "How far behind."

"A month," Merrill admitted apologetically. "Perhaps six weeks."

Ice crystals formed in the Fade-touched caverns of Hal's heart. Her blood drained from her face. But she remained calm. Maybe unhealthily calm. "So it's getting worse."

Merrill winced and took Hal'lasean's hand in both of hers. "It's healthy, lethallan. Just slow. That's not so bad, is it?"

"No," she agreed, but she could already feel the tears stinging at her eyes. It wasn't so bad to be pregnant for years and give birth to a healthy Elvhen child that would take most of her lifetime to even learn to crawl. If she survived the long labor. It wasn't so bad if it meant Fen would have a child to remember her by, even if she would never really get to know it. It wasn't so bad. There were worse things. But damned if she wasn't crying anyway.

The men joined Merrill on the bed with her, Varric hugging her to his chest while Dorian loyally rubbed her feet. Merrill clung to her hand and petted her hair. And Hal cried, silently, gently, a simple release of pent up feeling. 

"That's it," Varric coaxed, his fond smirk audible in his tone. "Let it out. Give it all to the chest hair."

Despite the ache in her chest, she started giggling, and when she tried to sit up, the dwarf put her in a loose headlock and pinned her face to his coarse blonde fur. "No," he said firmly, "it needs your tears."

Dorian choked. " _That's_ how it stays so glorious! Elven tears! I should have known."

Their morose chuckling was cut off by a firm knock at the door that could mean only one person: Cassandra.

"Come in!" Dorian called. As their formidable Seeker clomped purposefully up the stairs, Varric let Hal go and helped her smooth her hair and dry her eyes. Each time she wiped at her cheeks, she smeared her damp fingers on his chest.

"Inquisitor," Cass began when she made it into the room proper, but when she saw the pile of her comrades on the bed, her brow furrowed and she decided instead on, "Hal'lasean. There's been a raven."

Hal's chest clenched again but she sat up straighter in the bed and reached out to accept the folded parchment in her advisor's hand. Whatever it was, it had to be serious and urgent for her to not leave it with the rest of the day's reports and correspondance. Everyone waited in tense silence as she turned it over in her hands. Leliana's seal, broken by Cassandra. Leliana's script. Her heart thudded heavily as she opened it. She only remembered to breathe when Merrill placed a hand on her pregnant stomach.

 

_We found her. A brothel in Minrathous. The Gilded Dragon. Former slave, three children by master. Freed upon his death. Ir abelas, ma falon. - L_

 

Dorian had been reading over her shoulder as he always did. He stood abruptly when he was finished and stalked furiously around the room, looking for something to punish.

"Sparkler..."

" _Fuck_ Tevinter!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish Translations:
> 
> "Ir abelas, ma falon" - "I am (full of sorrow/sorry), my friend"


End file.
